For those of us who don't think that Vista is ready for prime time yet, XP 64 looks like it might be the best alternative for Windows users.  However, I thought that someone might find it helpful if I shared what I discovered (when it fell on me) during my XP 64 install:

I decided to go ahead and set my PC up on an XP 64 / XP Media Center Edition dual boot this weekend -- working on the project during breaks between the hectic demands of the season.  Saturday into Sunday morning wasn't a problem, as I was doing full data backups and standard disk preparation such as running complete disk checks with sector scans, deleting unnecessary files, etc..  That part went OK, it was just time-consuming.

I experienced a minor glitch while activating the disk partition software that I'd purchased, but that one was relatively quickly resolved.  So I partitioned the drive, inserted the XP 64 installation disk, the disk went through its preliminary steps -- and then directly to a Blue Screen of Death.  The screen told me that "a problem had been detected with my system", and it recommended that I run a virus scan and check to see that all of my hard drives were connected properly.  I tried the same thing a couple of more times with the same result.

After whispering to myself "why can't these things ever be easy?", I rebooted under MCE, and did a lot of research.  That part took hours.

To make a very, very long story short: come to find out, the XP Pro 64 installation CD doesn't load the drivers that are necessary for detecting SATA/RAID hard drives (it's looking for IDE drives) -- thus leading straight to the dreaded BSOD upon an attempted OS installation.  The standard trick to get around the problem has been to "slipstream" the correct drivers in using a floppy disk to load the drivers during the installation process.  Unfortunately, new PC's are sold without a floppy drive to be found anywhere on them..........................

After a lot of googling and research, I came across a handy little free app called nLite.

http://www.nliteos.com/

NLite will take your source installation CD, and then burn a copy CD / DVD with the appropriate drivers, updates, etc. bound into and loaded automatically by the nLited disk.  The nLited disk is bootable, and works just like your original OS installation CD, along with whatever additional  material (drivers, updates, service patches, on and on) that you've added to it.

Excellent.

After locating and installing updated drivers for my motherboard's SATA Intel chipset + my DVD-RW drive's firmware -- the nLited DVD did exactly what I needed.  No muss, no fuss.  XP 64 installed -- taking a couple of hours to do.  *Hurray!

Then......I had to go looking for updated 64 bit drivers for my ethernet adapter, because XP 64 wouldn't connect to the internet without it.  So I installed that; I also located and installed 64 bit drivers for my video card, my BIOS, and for other items.  It all worked: it just took a long time to find & install it all.

Then, of course, I had to connect to Windows update to download and install a bunch of updates for XP 64.  That worked without a hitch: it just took about an hour to finish.  There were a lot of updates.

But let me tell you -- the final result has been worth it!  I now have a beautiful XP 64 / XP Media Edition dual boot that works flawlessly.  XP 64 loaded in fresh, and without all of the junk that PC manufacturers load up new machines with.

XP 64 snaps along nicely.  It's addressing all 4G's of my system's RAM, and the graphics & visuals on my LCD monitors have noticeably improved.  It's faster.  I think that I am going to like it..........

This was done partially to prepare my PC for Poser Pro when it comes out -- so that I'll be ready for the 64 bit end.

Now I'll have to start migrating my 3D applications to the 64 bit side.  I think that it's going to make a big difference, performance-wise.  I was able to open up Poser 7 in XP64 simply by double-clicking on the Poser.exe file.  But it opened up like a brand new installation of the program, with all of the factory default settings and none of my external runtimes loaded in.  Doing the same thing with Adobe Photoshop opened the program, but went to the registration dialog box -- once again, like a brand new installation.  

Certain other programs - such as AutoCAD -- won't work at all on the 64 bit side until I reinstall them there.

BTW - the 32 bit side seems to be working faster and looking better, too.  Probably because of the updated drivers for the motherboard and the BIOS.  So that was an unexpected positive side-effect.  The end result was worth all of the effort, based upon the what I've seen in the brief time that I've had to look everything over so far.  So I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's willing to take the plunge (and who has a sense of adventure).  Just be prepared to jump through a lot of hoops to get there.

I also HIGHLY recommend the little nLite utility.  I could not have done what I did without it -- at least nowhere near as easily.

Thanks for that nLite tip!

By the way, I didn't have your BSOD problems when installing XP64 on SATA only machines (three of them). Might have to do with the chipset - two machines have an nForce4 chipset, the third one an Intel P965. 

Great to hear that you got it to work properly. I installed x64 last February on my new PC and checked first that there are drivers available for all hardware items I have. It installed quite fast after installing a floppy drive for the RAID driver. Unfortunately the driver cannot be located on a USB stick.

It didn't take long to install x64 though and I also saw some perormance improvments for x32 applications. One reason may be that x64 provides a virtual address space of 2 GByte for each 32bit application. So no swapping is needed, when 2 applications run in parallel.

Finally I found two minor drawbacks. Nero6 doesn't work, but according to Ahead Nero will work from version 7 on. There is no DVD-RAM packet driver available formy system, but I can live with that.

I really like x64, even with the 32bit applications.

You are certainly welcome, svdl.

There's a handy tutorial on using nLite, too -- unfortunately I don't have the link to the tutorial here with me at the office right now.  The tutorial writer has helpfully provided "pre-loaded" drivers for various Intel SATA chipsets in a single zip file.  

I might post the link to that tutorial later tonight.  Otherwise, you can find the link to the tutorial where I did -- embedded in the nLite program itself, when you run the software.  It's a help point in one of the dialogs.

The creator of nLite might have that link somewhere on his website, too.  But I don't have the time to look for it at the moment.  sigh

Quote - XP Pro 64 installation CD doesn't load the drivers that are necessary for detecting SATA/RAID hard drives (it's looking for IDE drives)

This was true for XP32 as well.

The easiest solution is to simply run your SATA HDDs in IDE mode. If you have any of the recent mobos, they all have an option like this in their BIOS which lets you choose what the SATA disk looks like to the system. If you select 'IDE' then the disks look exactly like normal IDE disks, are detected by the OS and actually run faster because they bypass the RAID controller (of course if you are setting up a RAID then the nLite thing is the only way to go)

EDIT: just dont do this after youve already installed the OS as otherwise it wont let you boot.

Quote - Finally I found two minor drawbacks. Nero6 doesn't work...

I'm using Nero 6.6.1.4 (32 bit) on XP64 with no problems.

Shoulda just asked me. ;)

Yes, you need to have the SATA/RAID drivers (on a disk or CD or something accessible) before intalling Windows XP Pro x64 and supply them when needed during the install.  PlanetAMD64.com is the best source for this type of information.

QuickTime also doesn't work.  This is a big pain if using Cinema 4D since the QuickTime movie (MOV) and image (PNG, PICT) formats are unusable there.

Another problem one might encounter is with wireless adapter drivers (like Linksys WAG/WMP etc. type cards).  There are only a few by any manufacturer that work - and Linksys has never supplied drivers for x64 (though there is a workaround driver that may work).  For my new system with dual boot into XP Pro 32-bit and 64-bit, I had to settle for a wireless game adaptor external device connected to the Ethernet port since none of the supposedly supported wireless cards would work under both OSs.

Nonetheless, TRUE REAL 64-bit (unlike some other OSs just recently released) is amazing, ain't it! ;D

Quote - The easiest solution is to simply run your SATA HDDs in IDE mode.

I'd run across that solution as well.  However, most of the postings that I read on it pointed out the fact that setting IDE mode causes the loss of SATA functions -- like no AHCI/RAID available.  So they didn't recommend it.

Here's the link to the nLite tutorial that I mentioned earlier (the poster offers excellent advice):

http://www.msfn.org/board/Integration-Intel-Sata-Raid-drivers-t107504.html

The textmode driver loaded via the agency of nLite worked great for me.  I don't install 64 bit OS's every day in the course of my normal work -- I'm not an IT guy.  In fact, this is the first time that I've installed a 64 bit OS at all........  So, I had to do a little self-educatin'.

Quote - Shoulda just asked me. ;)

That probably would have been the easy way -- but who wants to do things the easy way? 

Quote - Nonetheless, TRUE REAL 64-bit (unlike some other OSs just recently released) is amazing, ain't it! ;D

From what I've seen so far, yes it is.

A coworker of mine purchased a new PC pre-loaded with Vista 64.  He's had no end of trouble since then.  He claims that many programs just won't run under Vista 64.

I looked Vista over, listened to the experiences of others, and read through forum postings both pro and con.  I decided that XP 64 looked to be the best bet for now.

well finally someone has shared a VITAL information for my pc headaches..I'm running painfully a XPPro 64 bits for around 4 years and all problems has ocurred since day one..as myself did the building of that system/machine I always too it hard ob me ..on my total ignorance os such small terrible issue with drivers etc...noit the less...I use to format my system about twice a year - when was 32 bits every 3 months - now it's so painfull to do it with 64 bits that I shrink the 'plastic- refreshment' for twice a year only.
Last week my site was hacked, and same time I was formating my pc. Since today almost 4 days after the format I had not yeat decide which ATI RADEON X1600Pro driver I 'll use in it...I have installed about 3 different ones and unisrtalled. Trying Poser that is seated in an external 500GB drive and all it's gang - several times with the most odd behaviors ....so also unistalled Poser 7 about 3 times nothing changed.
So I realized I had instlled the driver for Video enhanced that is part of the Motherboard gang. So I unistall such driver and Poser works peerfect! Perfect without using driver for Video enhanced and witouth Ati Driver! No..no ..no...not possible I have to have at least thr Ati driver.
So I install again Ati driver from Ati site direct - version 7.12 but in my pc when checking the version is 8 !!!! Never mind! Site's error when writing the text in it..I presume...
Now, yes Poser is working. but....but the driver witouth the Video enhancement does not look good. My Ati is 512MB so it's quite 'ok' the resolution when you look at the display but when you look again..the desktop picture is kind of 'moiré' look..that's not aceptable. So I wonder I do need to install the Enhanced Display Driver Helper Service. (look at thr anme..do I really need this?)
I wonder what is that is making the Ati's driver look so bad? obviuosly it could not be the 'Enhanced Display Driver Helper Service' because it sounds more like a 'how to' stuff than a 'do' stuff....
 anyone of you guys, obviuosly feeling same pain as I when managing the drivers for you 64 bits system..could give me a 'light' here?
I also did pay for that ridicouslly site: http://login.esupport.com/join_today.php?PHPSESSID=dr1jcchhs79s1jajaspojmj5f0
but so far it did mess with me....drivers it find for you are so many that is better you choose by yourself via normal googling... 'cause what he sugests are the ones I had here too even same from 2005!!!! so it's trowing 30 USD away...
well...gladly awaiting for a supportive advise or even better the right solution for my sick system...

Your problem is the ATI graphics card. The hardware is fine, but ATI traditionally only supports Win32, not Win64 or Linux.
Get an nVidia graphics card. 7xxx series, 8xxx series, doesn't matter. nVidia has good XP64 drivers for all its hardware.

ATI drivers have traditionally been the weakest link to using ATI graphics cards.  Once I moved over to nVidia some years back, I have never purchased another ATI card willingly (iMacs tend to use these).  We're talking something like six or seven computers and probably twenty video cards over this time.  And I giggle every time the same problems arise with ATI drivers - because I was there, did that, moved on quickly.  ATI just can't compete with nVidia since the latter provides support for multiple-monitors (something ATI has only started to do recently!), 3D stereoscopics, and just has much better OpenGL support overall.

Do as svdl suggests or languish in everlasting pain! :D

I was warned by a friend about ATI drivers. So I decided to go nVidia especially when using x64. XP is a very stable operating system and most of the problems come from not well tested drivers. Traditionally x32 drivers are well tested, whereas x64 drivers have a much smaller user base and so one must be really careful about the PC components. Best thing is to have a dual boot system. If you experience a similar problem in x32 and x64 than it may be a hardware or application problem, but you never can be sure ;-)

Odd......I have an ATI card on my system -- and it seems to be working just fine under XP 64.  I am getting some sort of warning message upon boot-up about a "public key" file missing in my ATI path.  But I just click on "OK" and the warning dialog goes away.  After which the machine works beautifully with no problems whatsoever.  I haven't had the time over the holidays to look more deeply into what the source of the warning dialog problem might be.  But as it doesn't appear to be affecting my system's functionality at all, I'm not greatly concerned about it.  I have dual widescreen LCD monitors plugged into the ATI card.  It's a Radeon X1650 Pro w/512M.  My PC is a little over a year old, so of course it's obsolete .  It's a Core 2 Duo machine with 4G's of RAM, which XP 64 takes full advantage of.  I ignorantly did myself a huge favor back when I bought the machine by purchasing it a couple of months before the Vista OS first hit the market.  So it did not come pre-loaded with Vista.  The sticker on the outside of the PC says "Vista ready"........so if and when Vista itself is ever ready ----------->  But I'd highly recommend going the XP 64 route instead.  I haven't noticed any major driver issues yet.

BTW - so far, in my limited time between travel and other holiday / work activities, I've migrated Poser 7 (which did not require a re-install), Vue 6 Infinite, and Photoshop CS3 Extended over to the 64 bit side.  Based upon what I've seen with the arrangement under XP 64 thus far: I am beginning to ask myself why I didn't do this a long time ago.  I can have all three applications open at the same time, with Poser 7 rendering something; a large scene loaded into Vue; and Photoshop open with multiple images -- all while browsing the internet with no noticeable slowdown.  I have, however, noted a definite improvement in the smoothness, speed, and overall stability of all three of those software applications.  The graphics look better, too.

Most likely, the only frequently-used program which I have that will remain on the 32 bit side for now will be AutoCAD.  I am planning to attempt to install AutoCAD 2008 under XP 64, but I've heard that I might have some issues with AutoCAD under 64 bit.  We'll see.  When I get the time, I am also planning on adding Lightwave and Modo (along with other apps like Carrara 6 Pro) to the 64 bit side, too.

Why didn't I do this a long time ago....................?????  :biggrin: (mixed emotions)

I found out that my antivirus / internet security program (Panda 2008 - www.pandasoftware.com) works fine under XP 64.  I've installed it , also.  I've heard that a lot of the popular antivirus programs won't run under 64 bit.  I'm glad that mine does.  IMO, it's an excellent security suite.  The first thing that Panda did upon installion under XP 64 was to eradicate all of the tracking cookies that I'd accumulated through using IE7 for a couple of days.  I left it doing a full deep system scan while I'm at work today.  It scans the registry and everything else.  I'd recommend Panda if anyone is looking for a security suite.  But I can't say how it might or might not do under Vista.

My recommendation?  Get XP Pro 64 while you can.

Dude you are running alot of 3D programs  

I try. 

Actually, I don't use AutoCAD for 3D purposes very often.  AutoCAD is more for my day job-related work: which typically involves designing and laying out building systems for commercial / industrial / public buildings (lighting, power, fire alarm, communications, internet, etc.).

I've come to greatly appreciate the creative side of 3D graphic / artistic work.  Much of what I do for the day job work is strictly regulated by code.  There's not a whole lot of room to let your imagination fly in........3D graphics does that (as does writing).  It's sad if your right brain atrophies from lack of use.  Especially when the right brain turns out to be your dominant side.

I run Carrara 6 Pro, Poser 7, Cinema 4D, Xfrog, Photoshop CS2 and other tools under x64 without any problems coming from x64. Unfortunately I only have an old Cinema4D version, which is not 64bit.

Vista is a no-go for me as it is today. Memory consuming, without any benefits for me. I only hope that x64 will be supported for some time in the future.

XP is being supported longer now as billy boy has had to many businesses and big business screaming holy murder at him over vista, they gone back xp 64 quite a few of them.
The new windows 7 which is confirmed release 2010 or earlier if  nothing goes wrong, will bypass all the vista faults and will run with less memory, so gonna be funny those peeps that bought vista being told get xp 64 instead.
Will have to buy windows 7 as i will get windows 7 as their is no way on gods green earth i will ever touch vista, was quite funny 1 games player came in shop and said who wants by this vista crap from me.
1 bod said why and he goes its crap for heavy online gaming and i gone back to dual boot xp pro and xp 64, and its quite surprising how many games players have thrown vista out the window.

No wonder, just look at game boxes and the requirements for the games
XP: 512MByte
Vista: 1GByte

An operating system should be a platform for applications and leave resources for them.

Xen,
I also installed the 64 Bit XP Pro over the holidays but never got the BSOD.  I have 2 X Sata 2 drives on my machine.  1 for the 32 bit version and the other for the 64 bit.  Of course after I installed the 64 bit version, I had driver problems but eventually found them on the internet.  Now that you mentioned the Sata/Raid issues, I'm wondering why I didn't experience any problems.  I haven't been using the 64 Bit as of late and now I'm wondering if I'll experience problems later with that version.  I will get that program you mentioned just in case.  Thanks for the heads up.     

@Circumvent --

Yes, some people report that they haven't seen the BSOD problem crop up with SATA drives and XP 64 installation.  I'd be curious to know if your BIOS is set to SATA/RAID for your drives, or if it's set to IDE.  As others have stated: that's another work-around for this problem.  But it has the downside of cutting out RAID functionality.