What exactly is it that triggers a need to re-authorize XP?

[g4ugm]

There were far more versions of Windows XP than the three you listed. Two other notable versions were 64 bit edition and x64 professional edition. The former 64 bit edition came first and was solely intended for Itanium machines. It had an integrated x86 emulator because the Itanium couldn't run x86 code natively, it had a horrible internal hardware based emulator which was painfully slow. The latter x64 professional edition was just WS2003 x64 with an XP GUI.

Other editions included MCE200x, Embedded, Red edition, POSReady 2009, Tablet PC, Professional Blade Edition, Home ULCPC and some "pay as you go" versions. Between all of these, there are dozens of sub versions as well, all requiring different media.

Windows XP Red is a bit of an oddball, I only know about it because I acquired a machine that had a product key for it. There was hardly any information on it, other than it was sold only to MS refurb partners for use on older machines. None of my XP media works with it, not even VLK media, so I was never able to install it to see if anything was different.

While they are called XP the 64-bit versions use a different code base. some are really server 2003 but xp in name only

 

[Agent Orange]

While they are called XP the 64-bit versions use a different code base. some are really server 2003 but xp in name only

That's correct. Windows 64-bit Professional supports the 86 architecture with many enhancements, mainly greater than 4 GB RAM, while Windows 64-bit is for Itanium. They couldn't have made it anymore confusing IMHO. I've run XP 64 Pro a few times and found it kind of buggy which was probably due to my hardware not being up to the task. I'm going to load it up again on a Gigabyte 790 mobo with some decent video and RAM and see what happens.

 

[kgober]

I ran Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for years on my main gaming rig and never had any significant issues with it, but I used stock Microsoft drivers whenever possible and really didn't run anything on that system except a web browser, voice chat and games. Eventually I upgraded to Windows 8 which meant reinstalling from scratch because while you could upgrade 32-bit XP to 32-bit Windows 8, there was no corresponding upgrade from 64-bit XP to 64-bit Windows 8.

 

[cthulhu]

Windows XP x64 edition seems to be one of the "not worth bothering with" versions of Windows, like ME and Vista also are. Windows 7 appears to be the better choice on any (?) hardware capable of running XP x64 edition.

 

[Agent Orange]

Windows XP x64 edition seems to be one of the "not worth bothering with" versions of Windows, like ME and Vista also are. Windows 7 appears to be the better choice on any (?) hardware capable of running XP x64 edition.

There's some truth to that but if one is building a border line period gamer, for instance, W7 drivers may become a problem.

 

[Unknown_K]

Finding XP 64 bit drivers are a problem anyway.

I just built a WinME machine and I recommend it for last generation hardware that has ME specific drivers.

 

[Agent Orange]

The board is a Gigabyte MA790FX-5UDP and all of the mobo drivers installed okay on the XP Pro 64-bit with the OEM setup CD as well as the XFX 7970 video cards. I'll try to get some apps on it tomorrow and see how it goes. BTW - no activation called for.

 

[Agent Orange]

. . . all of the mobo drivers installed okay

After further review, not so. The RealTek HD audio drivers did not install. The fix, of course, was to install SP2 for XP x64 Pro. None of the system's features will work 100% without SP2. It should be noted that SP2 is the only SP for XP x64 Pro. As a matter of fact, you can still download it from M$. I installed Tom Clancy's H.A.W.K. and it runs real well, possibly aided by the extra RAM.

One of the major drawbacks to this 64-bit system is that it does not support 16-bit apps. Even some of the older 32-bit apps may not load or work. However, if you're going to dedicate the x64 as just a gaming platform, I think it's fares fairly well. One draw back may be the mobo driver situation if you are building from scratch, and don't have the original system drivers. Fortunately for me, I had the original mobo driver CD. Worth noting is I didn't bother to setup Windows IE. Instead, I installed the same older Mozilla package (48 I think) as on my XP 32-bit A7 gamer, and it went ahead and updated itself. So, the bottom line is it works okay and only occupies an old 80 GB WD PATA HD on a backup machine.

 

[Chuck(G)]

It's the "no 16 bit support" limitation that discouraged me. At the time, I was still running some 32-bit programs that installed using 16-bit code. It's the same thing that dissuaded me from Win7 64 bit--you can get around that by running a hypervisor, but it's inconvenient. For DOS applications, I suspect that VDOS will work as it does with Win10.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Finding XP 64 bit drivers are a problem anyway.

I don't think I ever had a problem with XP x64 drivers on my machines and I used it quite a bit for awhile.

It used the same drivers as WS2003 x64 so it generally had good driver support, compared to something horrible like Vista, which introduced a new driver model and killed nearly a decade of driver backwards compatibility.

About the only problem with drivers on XP x64 is that OEMs and motherboard manufacturers didn't create driver packs for it, so you had to go out and get the drivers from the peripheral manufacturer.