One nice thing about 圆4 systems is that you can use either Win32 or Win64 on the same machine without serious performance losses, unlike Itanium-based systems. Think of this overview as a look at just the important differences relative to your knowledge of Win32 and the x86 architecture. This frees me to focus on the good stuff. I'll assume that you know basic Win32 concepts, basic x86 concepts, and why your code should run on Win64. In this article I'll boil down my experiences with Win64 and the 圆4 architecture to the essentials that a hotshot Win32® programmer needs for the move to 圆4. A good working knowledge of the OS and CPU is invaluable. While we developers would like to think that moving to 圆4 is just a recompile away, the reality is that we'll still spend far too much time in the debugger. The nice thing about Win64 and the 圆4 CPU architecture is that they're different enough from their predecessors to be interesting, while not requiring a huge learning curve.

So when the 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server™ 2003 appeared on the scene, I was all over them. I don't really feel comfortable with an operating system until I have a little under-the-hood knowledge. One of the pleasures of working on the bleeding edge of Windows® is poking around in a new technology to see how it works.

This article uses the following technologies: Debugging techniques for your 圆4 builds.Developing for 圆4 with Visual C++ 2005.Background on 64-bit versions of Windows.New information has been added to this article since publication.Įverything You Need To Know To Start Programming 64-Bit Windows Systems

2023.04

Everything 64 bit windows 10