Category Archives: 64-Bit Software News

Apple has denied any rumored delays for the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard release. Also, Shaw Wu of American Technology Research says that developer builds of the Leopard operating system indicates that Apple is on track to ship it in the spring release time frame. This runs from March 20th through June 20th.

“Analysts, however, are concerned that Apple has yet to publicize the promised “secret features” of Leopard. Apple is expected to highlight Mac OS X Leopard at ths year’s annual developer conference in June,” Associated Content reports.

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Array Systems Inc, which assists its small – medium sized business clients with the integration of the Windows Vista OS, claims that mainstream users are better served with the 32-bit Vista than with its 64-bit counterpart.

“Mainstream users are best served with the 32-bit applications of Windows Vista and will experience the greatest compatibility with peripherals, applications, and improved features. The use of 64-bit implementations of Vista should be based on need. If you have a special application or operational requirement today that mandates this extended version of Vista, proceed ahead; just be sure to research and resolve potential conflicts and remedies first. Windows Vista 64 will gather increased momentum and acceptance; however the practical return on investment may be years away. As with any new product offering, the key will be testing the Vista environment with current application prior to making an upgrade decision,” Array System’s says in analysis on Microsoft’s 32-bit and 64-bit Vista.

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The Windows Vista Codec Package x64 Components 1.1.2, which enables xvid, divx and DVD playback in 64-bit Vista’s Media Center, was released this week.

“Did you buy Vista x64 but find that almost nothing will play in MediaCenter? Do you want to watch your favorite video’s in MediaCenter? These package is tested on Vista Ultimate x64. It is a fully functional standalone installation,” the publisher’s description says.

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Sabayon Linux 3.3 has been released recently. This Linux distribution, based on Gentoo Linux, is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Sabayon Linux 3.3 - New Features and Improvements

• Sabayon Linux kernel sources based on 2.6.20 featuring wireless-dev, unionfs, squashfs 3.0, Afatech 9005 support, MacTel enhanced support
• Both systems completely recompiled with new LDFLAGS that give an extra performance boost and reactivity
• Featuring both software raid support and dmraid 1.0
• GeeXbox has been updated to 1.1rc1 waiting for the upcoming 2.0 release.
• Gentoo Portage import freeze was on the 20th of January, 2007
• Complete artwork redesign to meet the new marketing strategy
• Faster boot time thanks to massive startup optimizations
• Created the basis to the yet highly experimental eINIT support trough the selection of the accelerated init system using (accel_init=/sbin/einit)
• Featuring HAL 0.5.9 and D-Bus 1.0.2 for an out-of-the-box laptop experience
• X.Org 7.2 featuring AIGLX and Composite support
• Beryl 0.2.0r2 supporting XGL, AIGLX and NVIDIA Composite extension
• NVIDIA Drivers 9755 and 9631 (legacy - automatically triggered - to disable append nvidia=disablelegacy to the boot prompt. To force 9631, append nvidia=forcefail instead) sporting our runtime linking feature
• Support for the latest NVIDIA GPUs like GeForce 8800 GTX
• ATI Drivers 8.34.8 sporting our runtime linking feature
• ATI GPU detection improved for X600, X700, X8xx video cards
• Metisse 0.4 Technology Preview ONLY for GNOME and KDE desktops
• Outstanding wireless support thanks to the drivers imported from the wireless-dev linux kernel git tree (sporting the cutting edge DeviceScape IEEE802xx stack) and to a much more integrated NetworkManager stack
• Outstanding NTFS support in read/write mode thanks to NTFS-3G 1.0
• Fonts rendering highly improved on all the Desktop Environments (fonts look sharp and clean now)
• The award winning Acceleration Manager has been rewritten using Qt 4.2 and it’s 2x times faster than the old one (latest release is 1.3.2)
• KDE 3.5.6 with Sabayon Linux integration patches
• GNOME 2.16.2 with a highly improved Sabayon Linux integration
• New Games on the DVD! (removed Quake4 and added Sauerbraten - aka Cube 2 - and Battle of Wesnoth)
• Get Live Help extended to the shell using irssi (you can run “get-live-help” without X.Org, chat with us and get helped, LIVE!)
• New Virtualization Support stack featuring: KVM-12 (fully supported), libvirt and Virt-Manager GUI (Technology Preview ONLY)
• Music Edition is now enabled by default (you’ll hear a nice music made by Tryad on Jamendo.org during the Live boot - CC License)
• Sabayon Linux Installer is now about 25% faster on fresh installations and 10% faster on upgrades
• 6th Sense Install upgrades now could be considered much more ironed out and tested but still EXPERIMENTAL
• New users creation after install will have the new Sabayon Linux default look
• Automatic and out-of-the-box video card auto-reconfiguration after install: if you’ll upgrade your PC to a new video card, the system will auto-reconfigure X.Org automatically
• Finally we have a LVM Management GUI imported from RH - system-config-lvm
• Language Configuration Helpers have been rewritten and ironed out
• Mozilla applications language autoconfiguration now works nicely
• Added Safe Internet Browsing Helpers to easily enable/disable Tor/Privoxy stack after install on GNOME, Ephipany, KDE, Konqueror, Mozilla applications and Opera. See /sbin/safe-browsing-setup
• Netscape Flash now works out-of-the-box on Firefox, Konqueror and Opera browsers
• Tons of stability fixes.

Sabayon Linux 3.3

The Frugalware Developer Team announced the immediate availability of Frugalware 0.6, the sixth stable release of this Linux distribution which is available in bot 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

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The release of Apple’s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be postponed to October 2007 to allow Apple to make new 64-bit operating system support Windows Vista OS through an integrated version of Boot Camp software, Digi Times reports.

“The sources pointed out that the launch delay is not due to software design problems with Leopard but instead is attributed to Apple’s plan to have its new OS support Windows Vista through an integrated version of Boot Camp. Boot Camp is an Apple software application that currently assists in the installation of Windows XP on computers using Apple’s latest OS. The company hopes with support for Vista, Mac computers using the new OS can grab more market share,” Digi Times has learned at industry sources.

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Nero has announced Nero Linux 3 with 64-bit support at CeBIT 2007 show.

“The new version of the definitive burning application for Linux OS added Blu-Ray and HD DVD data recording support as well as an improved graphical user interface (GUI) that is similar to the current Nero Burning ROM 7 edition. In addition to Blu-ray and HD DVD burning capabilities, Nero Linux 3 will also natively support 64-bit systems, as well as Unicode in all languages currently supported in Nero 7. Many Linux distributions will be supported in the new upgrade including Red Hat Enterprises, Fedora Core, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Linspire,” and Mandriva After Dawn reports.

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NVIDIA has updated the Display Driver for 64-bit Linux operating sytem. The new 1.0-9755 version brings support for NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 and Quadro FX 5600 graphics cards under Linux, as well as initial support for NVIDIA SLI with GeForce 8800, Quadro FX 4600, and Quadro FX 5600 cards.

NVIDIA’s latest Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver supports both desktop and notebook-use video cards. You can download the driver at company’s official webiste.

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Microsoft has published a list of applications that have earned the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo or the “Works with Windows Vista” logo. The list applies to both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista versions.

Microsoft explains that the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo is a compatibility designation for applications and devices that have passed a rigorous testing program on computers that are running Windows Vista. The technical requirements for this designation target four core areas: reliability, security, compatibility with Windows Vista and future operating systems, and installation and removal.

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NVIDIA has released the world’s first WHQL-certified drivers with support for Microsoft’s DirectX 10, the latest suite of multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs). The announced NVIDIA’s ForceWare 100.65 drivers support GeForce 6- and 7-series graphics cards, as same as 8-series designed for DirectX 10 gaming and multimedia.

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Microsoft has released Virtual PC 2007 1.0 virtualization software, which enables the use of multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the new Virtual PC 2007 are available free of charge.

Along with support for Windows Vista 64-bit as a host, VPC 2007 compared to previous VPC 2004 also includes support for 32-bit Vista as a host and as a guest OS. The performance is also improved compared to Virtual PC 2004, Microsoft says.

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A program used by eBay Inc.’s Skype Internet phone service collected identifying information from users’ computers running a 64-bit version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the software’s developer said.

It is reported that an older version of software - when running a PC with the 64-bit version of Windows - collected the serial number of the PC’s main circuit board and settings stored in the PC’s BIOS, which contains code for controlling keyboard, display, disk drives and other important functions.

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CyberLink Corporation, a digital home solutions provider, today released CyberLink Software Encoder 1.1, for enabling real-time MPEG-2 TV recording via Windows Vista Media Center, including 64-bit version.

CyberLink Software Encoder 1.1 offers native 64-bit support for PCs using the Windows Vista operating system. The benefits include better multi-tasking with less loading on system resources, as same as creation of larger, higher-quality, video files achieved by using more memory made available on 64-bit systems, according to CyberLink.

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SecureAction released CryptoExpert 2007 PRO encryption software, which works on Windows Vista 64-bit and Windows XP-64 bit.

CryptoExpert creates encrypted virtual disks and these disks are visible as usual disks with drive letters. It uses four powerful encryption algorithms to encrypt your data: AES, BLOWFISH, CAST and 3DES, which are world’s standards of encryption. CryptoExpert 2007 PRO supports 256 Gb and larger encrypted drive.

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Kaspersky Lab announced the release of Maintenance Pack 2 for Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0. An essential new feature introduced in Maintenance Pack 2 is support for Windows Vista, including the 64-bit version of Microsoft’s new operating system.

“Earlier antivirus product versions are not compatible with Vista because of the operating system’s new architecture. With Maintenance Pack 2, Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 will be fully compatible with both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. At the same time, Maintenance Pack 2 includes all the features and additions that were included in the first Maintenance pack, including full-scale support for Windows XP 64-bit Edition, extended on-demand scanning functionality, a number of improvements to the proactive defense module and protection of Windows Task Manager against injection of malicious dynamic-link libraries (dll),” the company’s press release says.

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