Is there a firm ETA on 64 bit?

[Madz]

Hi Guys and Don

I used to make do with XP explorer, but the windows 7 explorer is just dreadful. I've been trialing replacements and XYplorer is exactly what I'm looking for... except for one critical thing....64 bit is a must have for me due to shell extensions. At first I thought it wouldn't be too bad, I'd just try and get the 32 bit versions, but the very first one I came across I got into this discussion with the developer: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread. ... post122844 I don't necessarily agree so I thought I'd pull the installer apart myself and register the necessary dlls but in doing that I realised I just don't need the headache of trying to get my all shell extensions to work back in the 32 bit world.

Looking at the roadmap on here I see that a 64 bit version is slated for this year, however reading some of the threads it sounds like that's a very big maybe as it depends on someone developing the necessary compiler support which sounds to me like there's the possibility it may not happen (i remember being in a similar situation with Delphi). So my question is, at this point in time is there a 64 bit version being developed/under testing and if so what's the rough ETA or is it just a wish list item at this stage?

Thanks very much and congrats Don on your excellent software - just searching the forum here the level of support you provide and fast turn around on bugs really stands out.

[Madz]

Disappointed not to receive a reply to this. I would have thought the sorts of users most likely to be replacing their file manager these days are running 64 bit OSes and 64 bit support is an important factor in their purchase. I'd be fine buying XYplorer if I knew 64 bit support was coming with some certainty but without a response on this sadly I will have to look elsewhere.
Cheers
Mick

[j_c_hallgren]

Disappointed not to receive a reply to this.

None of us users know the details of this but we know that Don is currently on a bit of a summer break and hasn't been on forum much in last couple of wks so that's most likely why you didn't get an answer, ok?

[Madz]

Ok thanks for that!

[Mesh]

Don't worry, I'm sure there are a lot of people watching this thread carefully waiting for an official reply.

[eurytos]

Don't worry, I'm sure there are a lot of people watching this thread carefully waiting for an official reply.

I am one of those waiting

[prino]

... I don't necessarily agree so I thought I'd pull the installer apart myself and register the necessary dlls but in doing that I realised I just don't need the headache of trying to get my all shell extensions to work back in the 32 bit world.

Could you elaborate on this, i.e. how to get a 32-bit shell extension to work in W7-64?

[rhoelzl]

There have been a few threads on this topic before, and the result is that Don is waiting for a 64 bit compiler for Visual Basic 6 code.

Honestly, I do not believe that such a compiler will ever come. Don will EVENTUALLY have to port XY to some other language (probably some other object-oriented Basic dialect), but understandably he is trying to avoid that, becuase it would be a HUGE amount of work.

But clearly XY is touching the limits of VB6. Not just because of the 64 bit thing, but also due to the lack of threading (this is why we need a separate XYcopy.exe) etc.

[ethanpil]

I have not read every post on this forum, so please excuse me if the following link is well known already, however, just in case, I felt obligated to post it, because you never know...

Compiling 64 bit applications using Visual Studio 6:
http://www.javaxt.com/Tutorials/Visual_ ... atform_SDK

From That Page:

Believe it or not, it is possible to build a x64 bit application using Visual Studio 6! The key is getting a copy of the February 2003 Edition of the Windows Platform SDK. In this article, I will outline the steps I took to get my app compiled and built for x64 editions of Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 2003.

[rhoelzl]

Very interesting, thanks for the link!

[admin]

Will it work with VB6? It's not mentioned on that page.

[mwb1100]

Will it work with VB6? It's not mentioned on that page.

It appears to me to be instructions on how to get the VC++6 IDE to use a 64-bit C/C++ compiler toolchain from the Platform SDK. I don't think it will do anything for VB.

[Jibz]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj133828.aspx

I doubt there will ever be an update to VB6. Microsoft will continue to support the runtime in future Windows versions, simply because they have to in order to not break a bunch of software. XYplorer would have to be converted to a current programming language, which does not seem likely, or it will continue to only be 32-bit.

There is a difference between a language being supported for legacy applications, and it being viable for future development. Personally, I currently find things like the lack of multithreading to be a bigger concern with VB6 than being 32-bit only, but over time everything will move to 64-bit (just like it moved from 16-bit to 32-bit).

On a side note, both Directory Opus and Total Commander have 64-bit versions.

[admin]

... but over time everything will move to 64-bit (just like it moved from 16-bit to 32-bit).

Actually I doubt that. The 16-bit to 32-bit move happened in an era when computers were still tools of technophiles and not as wide-spread, grass-rooted, and indispensible for every day life as today. I would assume that the 32-bit to 64-bit move will take much longer and will be less complete.
(Of course, that's just an idle side-note speculation and will not help XY in this matter.)

[Jibz]

I think you are probably right it will be slower, but as the average amount of ram in a new system increases it will naturally happen. Nobody wants to buy a computer with 16 GB ram and only be able to use 3 of them .

And as you say, that doesn't mean that running 32-bit programs on them won't still be supported for a long time to come, it just means the demand for 64-bit versions of applications is likely to increase.