The slow child

Using Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is akin to roasting yourself over an open fire.

Microsoft really screwed the pooch on this one: practically no driver support (they helped this one out, keep reading), no promotion of the actual product, very narrow user-base thanks to clever marketing, no support for a number of Microsoft products (imagine the support for third-party software), no connectivity between XP 64 and Microsoft's own entertainment flagship XBOX 360 and almost-total third-party ignorance of the existence of XP 64.

Had Microsoft laid out the red carpet and gone all hog-wild about the release of this OS, things would be different. As it is, very few non-hardcore-geeks even realize that it's out there, and many companies ignore it like the annoying over-achiever cousin at a family function. "What? Drivers? Sure, we got drivers up the ass! Check it out. Works with everything under the sun: XP, 2000, Vista, 98, 95, 3.1, MCE, ME. Yup, works with every version of Windows in existence. Move along now, you're holding up the line."

The sad part isn't what Microsoft has done wrong in the past, it's what they're doing wrong now. Try downloading Windows Media Connect (software to allow you to stream music to your XBOX 360) for your XP 64. It doesn't exist. Microsoft has a copy of the program for XP Home, XP Professional (32 bit), XP Media Center and XP Media Center 2005, but nothing for XP 64. Not even a mention of the OS on the website. You get to find out that the program is incompatible once you download it and try to install. Whoop-de-doo! XP 64 has been out for a year, in beta for yet another year and in development far longer, but in all that time Microsoft hasn't even tried to get their act together. Windows Media Connect is something that they started working on after XP 64, so why not develop a version for it? Are they burying this OS on purpose?