Windows XP 64-bit (for X86) is now officially here. Here's a overview.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1788843,00.asp
- Most 32-bit programs that engage the operating system at a low level just won't run under XP64...
What they don't mention in this article is WHY some of these programs won't work -- in particular some of the disc utilities.
The reason is that the NTFS partition structure that has been in use with NTFS all these years -- on the X86 platform -- has changed significantly. MBR (Master Boot record) is out and GPT (GUID Partition Table, or Globally Unique IDentifier Partition Table) is in. You can still use MBR volumes in XP64 for X86, but you MUST use at least a GPT volume to boot on. GPT has been in use in XP64 for Itanium, so it's not really new. GPT
should be compatible with your current X86 BIOS, but it has historically been used by EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) on the Itanium to boot to disc volumes.
I think I once talked about EFI briefly last year to someone that was wondering about the future of the PC BIOS (CougTech?). Just to rephrase that, just think of EFI as the replacement for the creaky old derelict BIOS that the X86 PC just can't seem to shake off. The PC has evolved beyond parallel ports, the ISA bus, the AT form factor mobo, and MFM hard drives, but the idiotic BIOS is still with us from the early 1980s!!! EFI can give you a hell of a lot of capabilities that you can only do in software at the application level now -- such as advanced setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. EFI can provide these things without booting up or even without an operating system present because it can all be built into the firmware. That could even include the ability to fix the operating system without actually booting up the operating system, whereas you now have to run in Windows' "Safe Mode" to fix certain Windows problems.