Windows XP 64-Bit Edition Requirements
Windows XP Professional and Windows XP 64-Bit Edition differ in performance and capacity. As a result, setup, disk space, and device driver requirements also differ, as do installation of certain software applications and the method for running some applications such as Microsoft Management Console (MMC). These differences are as follows.
System Requirements
Table H-2 shows how system requirements for the two operating systems differ.
| System Requirements Setup Component | Windows XP Professional | Windows XP 64-Bit Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum CPU speed | 233 megahertz (MHz) | 733 MHz |
| Recommended CPU speed | 300 MHz | N/A |
| Minimum RAM | 64 MB | 1 GB |
| Recommended minimum RAM | 128 MB | N/A |
| Disk space required for Setup | 1.5 GB free | 1.5 GB free |
Multilingual Solutions
Installing certain types of additional language support requires more disk space on a Windows XP 64 Bit Edition based client. The differences relate to the following two language collections:
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Complex Script and Right-to-Left Language Collection. Requires 10 MB of hard drive space on Windows XP Professional, and requires 12 MB of space on Windows XP 64 Bit Edition.
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East Asian Language Collection. Requires 230 MB of hard drive space on Windows XP Professional, and requires 280 MB of space on Windows XP 64 Bit Edition.
Device Driver Installation
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition requires the installation of 64-bit drivers only. Some device drivers are modified to allow installation of 64-bit and 32-bit drivers from the same .inf file. These modifications also prevent installation of the wrong driver on the wrong platform. The extension .ia64 is used in the .inf file of these drivers to identify the installation files and sections in the .inf file that can be installed on the 64-bit platform. Previous versions of Windows do not recognize the .ia64 extension, and ignore any .inf file entries that contain it.
| Note | Some device drivers might have packaging that says that the driver works on Microsoft Windows XP, but it is designed to work only on Windows XP Professional. In this case, the driver does not work on Windows XP 64 Bit Edition. |
Running Microsoft Management Console Snap-Ins
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition includes both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of MMC. The default version of MMC that runs in Windows XP 64-Bit Edition is the 64 bit version. You can, however, manually select which version to run by running MMC from the Run dialog box, and by entering runtime parameters. This might be necessary if certain MMC consoles that you need to use are not available in a 64-bit version.
To manually select the version of the MMC to run
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To run the 32-bit version of MMC, in the Run dialog box, type mmc -32.
or
To run the 64-bit version of MMC, in the Run dialog box type mmc -64.
If you are running the 64-bit version of MMC, you cannot run 32-bit snap-ins. If the 32 bit version of MMC is running, you cannot run 64-bit snap-ins. However, if you run a particular MMC console, or set of administrative tools, without specifying the 64-bit or 32-bit version of MMC as described in the foregoing procedure, the version of MMC that runs is determined by an algorithm that looks at the number of 32-bit and 64-bit snap-ins available for that console. If all 64 bit snap-ins are available for the console, the 64-bit version of MMC runs. If only 32 bit snap-ins are available, then the 32-bit version of MMC runs. Other algorithms determine which version runs if a combination of 32-bit and 64-bit snap-ins is available for a particular MMC console. For more information about running 32-bit and 64-bit MMC snap-ins in Windows XP 64 Bit Edition, see the Microsoft Platform Software Development Kit (SDK).
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