x(perts)64

I personally like ATI video cards, but we’ve seen some reports on the newsgroup of folks who get a black screen when they first install Windows. Nothing they do will get them to where they can log in or do anything. Well, I just got nailed myself, so let me give you the steps to fix it.

If you have problems with a blank, black, screen on your first boot of Windows:

1. Reboot, and the moment all the motherboard enumeration stops, press F8 to get the recovery menu
2. Select Safe Mode. (You’d think VGA mode would work, but you’re wrong, it doesn’t.)
3. Once you’ve booted into Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, open the Device Manager
4. Expand the Display Adapters and highlight the ATI adapter that is listed. (You may have two or more, depending on the number of display outputs you have.)
5. Right Click and select Update Driver. Put your ATI CD in the DVD drive.
6. Click through the prompts to install the driver. Repeat for any additional displays that show.
7. Reboot. You’ll come up in ugly 640x480, but you can fix that easily enough.

Charlie.

Just heard from the MagicISO folks that their latest release of MagicISO (build 199) fully supports x64 and Vista. Good news, it’s a useful little utility that has been seriously flaky since I’ve moved to x64. We’ll see how it behaves in the days ahead.

Charlie.

You can’t join an x64 Vista computer to your SBS Premium network using connectcomputer, and you can’t even do it manually if you’re running the default ISA configuration. The solution is:

1. Open the ISA Management GUI
2. Scroll down to Configuration->Add-ins
3. Highlight “RPC Filter” in the Application Filters tab, and click Disable in the action pane.
4. Click the Apply button, and agree to stop and restart the service.
5. You can now join the x64 client to the SBS network manually.

This has been reported to MS and will be solved before Vista ships. But until it is, you’ll have problems. I have successfully run with the RPC filter re-enabled after the computer was on the domain, but did experience intermittent problems I couldn’t identify. Since I turned the filter back off, I haven’t seen as many problems.

Charlie Russel
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server R2 Administrator’s Companion

My favourite editor, VIM, has always worked quite well under x64 edition, but I’ve been hoping someone would port it to native 64bit. Well, with the release of VIM 7.0 (and what a huge upgrade this is, lots of cool new stuff), there is now a native 64bit version. In fact, there are two – one for x64, and one for IA64, both available at: http://georgevreilly.com/vim/. Thanks for doing the port, George!

Charlie.

Oh, my. Acer has announced not just one new Ferrari laptop, but two of them. And both have the new, dual-core, Turion X2 chip in them. The new Acer Ferrari 5000 looks to be a direct descendent of my Ferrari 4000, but with a dual-core processor, bigger hard drive, and a web cam built in. I’d love the dual core, for sure, but I’m actually more excited by the 1000 model. It’s dual core, but only 1.7 Kg (3.7 Lbs.). A smaller, 12.1” screen, but that’s a price you’re going to have to pay for saving the weight. Worth it, IMHO. Both machines come with your choice of Windows XP Home Edition, or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Guess which one I’ll take.

Charlie.

OK, so you’ve run the Trial version of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for a while, and you’re ready to end the trial and make the move to 64–bit computing for real. The first thing you’ll discover is that you can’t just call up Microsoft, give them your credit card number, and get a code to make the change. Too bad, that would be a lot easier, but that kind of upgrading we’ll have to wait for Vista to have.

So, you head on over to your local software shop, and you start browsing around, looking for a retail, boxed copy, of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Yup, no retail copy either. Microsoft made a decision (and I think it’s the right one), not to make a retail version of x64 Edition available, primarily because of the driver situation. The only copy that you and I can buy is an OEM copy, and for that we need “qualifying hardware”. Normally, qualifying hardware means a new system, but in the case of XP x64, it is generally being interpreted to mean any essential, non-peripheral, hardware device that is used on the computer. Well, every computer needs a mouse, certainly. Or a case fan – can’t last long without one of those. And there’s no requirement that it be a new one, so those $1.99 rebuilt mice should be just fine. Great, now that we’ve got that settled – where to buy it? Well, if you already have a good working relationship with a system builder, by all means get it from them. They’ve earned your trust and should get your business. If you’re the sort who always shops around for the absolute lowest price, and doesn’t build relationships with vendors, then why should this be different? All that being said, I have bought hardware and software from the following vendors and can verify that they are legitimate, trustworthy vendors:

www.ncix.com <– both Canadian and US support, and my current outstanding vendor.
www.planetamd64.com <– they’ve supported all of us with drivers, so support them a bit, eh?
www.directron.com <– I’ve bought from them many times. Good prices, crappy web site
www.zipzoomfly.com
www.newegg.com

Installing the OEM Version

Before you start to install the OEM version of x64 XP, you need to answer one question – has your Trial version expired? If it has, you have no choice – you must do a “repair install”. However, if your Trial version hasn’t expired yet, then you get to do an “in place upgrade”. Both of these installation techniques will preserve your current settings, but the in-place upgrade is preferred. You don’t need to worry about having drivers for your SATA controller on a floppy disk, for one. Here’s what Darrell Gorter, of Microsoft support, said about the differences:

It is always better to run an upgrade if possible. If the trial hasn't expired, it is the preferred method. An upgrade will refresh all the OS files, removing any OS updates that have been applied. Most settings should be preserved, installed applications and drivers should be preserved. (No F6, for one!)

If your trial has expired, or you choose to do a repair install, you should be aware of the following:

1. You may need to use F6 for mass storage drivers if your system uses them. 
2. Drive lettering is re-enumerated during the setup, which can cause issues on some systems.
3. Network card settings are re-detected, not migrated, which may cause issues on some systems. 
4. The HAL is redetected rather than migrated (but this is probably a good thing, IMHO.)
5. Most application settings should be preserved, assuming there's no drive letter changes.

So, assuming you didn’t wait until the last moment, simply insert the XP x64 Edition CD into your CD/DVD drive, and follow the standard XP installation steps. No big deal. If you do have to do a repair install, please see the excellent article that is maintained by my fellow Microsoft MVP, Michael Stevens – http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm. He’s got all the steps there. He wrote it for 32–bit XP, but the requirements are the same.

Charlie.

Two common questions I get in email these days around Windows XP Professional x64 Edition are how to upgrade the eval version to the released version, or the reverse — how to remove it. As I’ve said before, XP x64 isn’t for everyone, so this second one doesn’t surprise me.

Removing x64 Edition (or any other operating system that you dual or multi-boot into from the Windows boot manager) is a straight-forward process. (Well, except for Vista, that’s a whole new process.) The two steps required are:

• Remove the system files (and optionally format the partition) while booted into another operating system
• Edit the boot.ini file on your boot drive to remove the entry for x64

Removing System Files

The first step is straightforward – boot into 32–bit Windows and from Windows Explorer, delete the system files on the x64 Edition partition. These include the following folders (and their sub-folders):

• \Windows
• \Program Files
• \Program Files (x86)
• \Documents and Settings

This last one is tricky – you may well have important documents that you created when you were booted into x64 Edition. Please copy those documents before you delete the folder! You could also use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard to transfer the files, but whatever you do, make sure you’ve got a copy of them before you start deleting or formatting.

An alternative to manually deleting folders is to simply format the disk. This is only an option if your boot disk is not your x64 disk! Don’t format your boot disk. (I know, that should be obvious, but just in case.) How do you know if x64 is your boot disk? Well, the most obvious way is if it’s your C: drive. A general rule that is usually true is that the first operating system installed is on C: and is your boot disk, though it is technically possible to do it differently. (If you’re using Vista, all bets are off – it automatically makes Vista your C: drive regardless of which partition it is on.)

Edit boot.ini

Once you’ve removed the x64 Edition files, you’ll want to remove the entry from your boot menu. You can do this with any ASCII text editor, including Notepad. Or you can go to My Computer ->Properties ->Advanced tab ->Startup and Recovery and click on the Settings button and then click on the Edit button. Seems like a lot of clicks to me, I’d simply open a CMD window and type:

C:
cd \
attrib -r -s -h boot.ini
Notepad boot.ini        <-edit the file and then save and close
attrib +r +s +h boot.ini

From within Notepad, remove the line that points to your x64 Edition installation. If you have x64 installed on D:, it should look something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition"

Make sure your default OS is pointing to the operating system you want to be the default, and then save the file and exit.

That’s really all there is too it. But keep in mind that Windows Vista uses a different boot manager entirely.

Charlie.