Never?, I have read in a thread about map sizes in Elemental that these was going to be really huge, and with the 64 version even much more. I believe that was Frogboy who said it.

But maybe I dreamed it...

Blah.  I really don't want to upgrade my XP64 machine.  For as unsupported as people say XP64 is, I've had nothing but trouble trying to get Vista or Win7 to work with my games

Is there any value to Stardock in having bug reports from XP64 or should I hold off on giving debug dumps on bugs I encounter until I coax Vista/7 into cooperation?

They're not talking about XP in general, they're talking specifically about the 64 bit version of XP that has apparantly been dumped and left in the gutter by Microsoft.

I don't recommend using XP-64. We have it at work, as we are a VLSC site, and we do make use of it for some things like HFSS that need tons of RAM. However, driver support is not good. Workstations usually have drivers, though new ones aren't so much, but desktops often don't.

If you want 64-bit, I highly recommend Windows 7 64-bit. We have that too (it is out for volume customers) and it is great. Driver support is extremely good at this point, and compatiblity is high.

Other than HFSS v10, I have yet to find someting that would work in XP-64 bit, but not in Vista and 7 64-bit.

These days we push Windows 7 64-bit as the default OS, or XP 32-bit if there are compatiblity issues.

I'm running XP Pro 64 and all seems pretty well here too. So a game that's going to take so much advantage of multi-core processing and 64 bit operating systems won't come with XP Pro 64 support? I'm rather shocked and dismayed now...

Pro 64 isn't "Quite" that bad my friend For a Windows OS I find it pretty stable and powerful. The Drivers, particularly those NVidia Drivers running my graphics card are far, Far, from sketchy. I've really never had a issue with it. I Stayed away from Vista on purpose. I Do plan on going to Windows 7 next year some time.

I didn't like a lot of the changes brought with Vista, just personal preference really. As for being more stable I don't know about that. I play a Lot of new games as they come out and many of them seem to have problems running on Vista. I don't hear good things about it, and when I built this system a year ago even though I could have went with Vista and used Directx10 with my graphics card I decided to go with XP Pro 64 instead and stay with DirectX9. I've known for a while now Windows 7 "fixes" a lot of things with Vista, especially memory allocation. It's Vista without all the crap bogging it down more or less and far more stable for gaming. That last part is just what I "hear" though through the grape vine. Aside from that, I went XP Pro over Vista simply because I liked it better.

Here's my system specs in case you were wondering. I built this system last year around this time so it's almost a year old now.

• Intel Quad Core i7 Cpu 920 @2.67 GHz (Shows as 8 processors but it's only 4 Dual Cores)
• 3.99 GB (4 Gigs) of Ram
• NVidia GeForce GTX 280 1 Gig Video Memory on the card (soon to be dual SLI)
• DvD/CD Burner 20x20x12x
• Blu Ray Burner 8x12x16x Speeds
• Realtek High Definition Audio
• 2x Western Digital 1 Terabyte Hard Drives
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2

Well, for one thing, it's too expensive for what it adds in my opinion. There isn't anything in Vista / 7 that makes me say 'Wow, now THAT's something I want...' So, why should I upgrade if XP64 works perfectly well?

Cars, tractors, lawnmowers, chainsaws, power-drills, power-saws, VCRs, DVD players, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioners.

Literally anything with moving parts, and lots of things without.

I can only imagine you must not have had to deal with a lot of those types of products in regards to maintenance before.  Companies routinely change how they manufacture certain goods so it's close to impossible to find parts for the older models, for no other reason than you buy the newer model.  Most of the time they will change the way they manufacture their products solely for this very reason.  If that's not making a product and then dropping support a year later, I don't know what is.

In fact, with physical products the issue is even worse.  You can actually buy products as new that aren't even supported by their manufacturer at the time of purchase!

Really, it's hard to compare a software company to manufacturers of physical goods, but I find that it's a fairly good comparison.  In regards to software, Microsoft is hardly the only company that is guilty of that type of action.  Medical management software, inventory control, actuarial software, and others all suffer from this kind of business model to an even greater degree than Microsoft's Windows.

I have a copy of Windows 98, and I can still install it.  I have a copy of Windows 2000, and I can still install it.  I have a copy of Windows XP, and I imagine that in 5 years I could install it again if I wanted to.

The install issue for Windows XP is simply a techincal limitation.  In the end, it's no different than trying to install Windows 98 would be today.  Good luck getting that working with today's hardware, and lack of drivers.  Sure, it certainly is possible, but you usually have to be fairly skileld to get it done.  Some might say you're going to need to be just as skilled to get around Windows XPs activation limits 5 years from now.  It certainly is possible to get around that now, and I expect it will be no different 5 years from now when you can't even activate it through Microsfot if you wanted to.

From personal experience, I've reinstalled the same copy of XP at least 10 times, and in excess of 30+ in some cases.  On the off chance they want me to call their manual activation line, the entire thing is handled by computers.  Maybe the 64-bit edition is different.

In any event, when you're trying to run something that's obsolete, you're going to run into problems.  Whether it's an old TV without a digital tuner, or a copy of Windows that's 2 generations old, you have to expect your enthusiasm for the old will make your life harder.  Manufacturers and software makers simply don't care that what you have still works for the most part, they aren't making money if you're not buying their new crap.

Well, I know they tried to tell me to buy a new one on the phone. I was re-installing because of hardware malfunction. It was the third time in about 6 months that I had to reinstall everything because something broke and needed to be replaced. I've had the worst luck with this system since I've built it it's not even funny.

The second time I heard about it they tried to pull the same thing to my friend John when he was reinstalling his copy of XP but his wasn't XP Pro or 64 bit.

Maybe they don't mention it in the EULA because they don't want to advertise they are selling a product for $300 and then telling their customers they can only install it a limited number of times. If I would have known that when I bought this copy I would have just went with the newest version they had out and then waited for the Win 7 update.