On May 22, 2001, I attended a technical preview of Microsoft's 64-bit Windows products at the company's campus in Mountain View, California. The location was chosen because of its proximity to Intel and its hardware partners, such as Hewlett-Packard, which have been working on a new 64-bit hardware platform called IA-64 (Intel Architecture 64-bit), which will see its first rendition with the Itanium processor, being released in June, 2001. Itanium will be followed by a slew of new products in the IA-64 family, beginning with the next generation chip, code-named McKinley, which is due next year. But in the meantime, Intel and Microsoft have 64-bit products ready today, and in this showcase we'll take a look at what I learned that day in Mountain View.

The 64-bit Windows roadmap includes products for both the client and the server. These products are being developed alongside their 32-bit brethren, Windows XP and Windows 2002 Server, and will be released at the same time. "They target different markets," said Brian Marr, the Product Manager for Windows XP 64-bit edition. "The 64-bit products are targeted at the technical workstation market, while the 64-bit servers target the high-end of the server market. They are not overlapping with the 32-bit line."

So the 64-bit products are almost identical, feature-wise, to their 32-bit counterparts, but they're really not part of the same family. "There is no upgrade path from Windows XP Pro to Windows XP 64-bit Edition, for example," Marr noted. "But they are being developed in tandem, and will be launched together." <% ' Added so can inventory as Connected Home articles. kw = "CH" %>

64-bit Server releases will include Windows 2002 Server 64-bit Edition and Windows 2002 Advanced Server 64-bit Edition. This summer, Microsoft will release a pre-final version of Advanced Server, awkwardly named Windows Advanced Server Limited Edition Version 2002 (LE), that will accompany initial shipments of Itanium hardware from a variety of PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell, IBM, and others. When Windows 2002 is finalized late this year, this pre-final product will be replaced by the final versions of Advanced Server and Datacenter Server 64-bit. Customers that purchase Itanium servers before the final release will get a free upgrade to the final code.