XP 64-bit beta is AMD only

By Steve Malone

Posted on 8 Jul 2004 at 12:55

The latest version of Windows XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended Systems does not run on Intel processors, according to Infoworld. The current public beta will apparently run only run on AMD Athlon 64 and Opteron chips.

Although broadly compatible, AMD and Intel have slightly different ways of doing things. When the operating system loads, it looks to see what instructions are available. If it doesn't see the AMD instructions, it refuses to go any further. The reason being that Microsoft simply has not yet built in support for the recently released Nocona Xeon processor with its 64-bit extensions.

However, it is a relatively simple task to build in Intel compatibility. Microsoft has said that the next public beta of 64-bit Windows will support Intel processors.