So the webcast went very well, we had about 40 people who asked very
interesting questions which I thought I would share with you. The
typing errors remain as I want the script to be the original one:
Question: Is there any general 64-coding info for starters?
Answer: You can find all kinds of programming info (C++/Managed
Code, etc.) on http://www64advantage.com. It is one of the best places
to start.
Question: does c# work on 64-bit at this moment?
Answer: Yes, C# and Visual Basic .Net are fully supported in 64-bit with the release of the 2.0 64-bit framework.
Question: Will this webcast be available for download?
Answer: yes in 24 hours at www.microsoft.com/webcasts
Question: From the Developers Perspective, What would be the learning curve from 32 bit programing to 64bit programing?
Answer: It really depends on your programming language. If you are
dealing with managed code, oftentimes things can be as easy as just
recompiling. With languages such as C++, the API has not changed that
much, so given that you watch out for common pitfalls, your 64-bit
learning curve should not very steep.
Question: Do we have to sign up for tomorrow's session or are we already registered ?
Answer: You need to sign up for each of the webcasts. The
information for tomorrow's webcast:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032299373&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US
Question: I am running XP Pro at home. Can I write 64-bit code without a server?
Answer: You definitely can. Visual Studio and the PSDK will allow
you to write 64-bit executables from a 32-bit OS (Server or XP).
Remember to always use /wp64!
Starting today (like in 30 minutes ;) ), we will start the first
webcast in a series of three. These revolve around most of the
things we have discussed in the labs plus some new ones such as issues
with 64-bit installers, setting up VS for 64-bit deployment, and
multi-threading your application using OpenMP standards.
You can find the whole list
here. Tomorrow, Thursday 29th, I will be presenting a
webcast that
has many, many demos on how to preserve dependencies in 64-bit.
Feel free to stop by and let me know your comments once the session is
over.
If you really have no idea on what to expect when moving to 64-bit, then these webcasts are definitely worth listening to.
Did you know that you can get Intel's suite of tools such as VTune, the C/C++ compilers, and threading tools for free? These tools, when purchased are worth every cent. So how can you get them? Go to the
Intel Early Access program webpage at the Intel site and read on.
So we have mentioned that using the Intel compiler to generate 32 or 64-bit binaries is possible with Visual Studio, but we have not mentioned how to do it...until now.
I have found a web page on the Intel site that shows you step by step instructions on how to use it. The link can be found here.
Of course this brings the immediate question on whether this will work with Visual Studio 2005. Furthermore, if it does work, will it be a supported scenario? Stick around and I may have the answer to these and other questions on my next blog entry.
Even though we have talked quite a bit about POGO on our 64-bit sessions, we seldom have mentioned how you can actually weigh down the profiles that you use. In order to find this information, check
this link at the MSDN site that explains everything.
If you want to 'take it up a notch' when it comes to POGO and find exactly what is happening with your scenarios, check
this blog post from Kang Su Gatlin.
If there is anything you would like to know about POGO, just let me know and I'll more than happy to research it for you!
The Longhorn Server conference finishes today but we had to part yesterday since we had to be in Costa Rica today :( This means that we missed some of the sessions on the last day. The one we regret the most was the second part of Virtualization which has some cool stuff for the future. I will not dive into specifics because I am sure Jose will probably blog about this so keep visiting often to read about how virtualziation on Longhorn will change the ways things are done.
I also had the chance to attend the HPC session. This deals specifically with Windows Server Cluster Edition 2003 which is slated to be released in Summer 06. What does this have to do with 64-bit, you might ask? Well, this version of Windows Server only runs on x64 hardware. It is really cool to see everything pointing towards 64-bit. Applications have been starving for more memory for a long time, and now that we have the tools and OS to get things up and running, we just have to stand back and watch the transition happens.
One session we most definitely enjoyed was Monad, which is a shell that will ship with Longhorn Server. This environment makes it so easy to carry out many tasks that in Unix would require several visits to the man pages again and again. What makes Monad so special is that its a shell in which you type commands that actually make sense from a human perspective - no AWK, GREP. For instance, a Monad command 'get-services', does what you expect, gets the list of services. Once you get this listing, there is a plethora of things you can do by piping to other Monad commands. One that blew me (and the audience as well) was a command to output the result as a series of bar graphs in IE - pretty neat stuff!
Some have asked in the past about building for 64-bit using previous IDEs such as Visual Studio 2003 and Visual C++ 6.0. Even though this is not a supported scenario, it is possible. Please follow this
link in order to get instructions on how to accomplish this.
I cannot stress this enough: if you need to build 64-bit binaries, please use Visual Studio 2005. By doing so, you know that you are dealing with a supported scenario, are most likely to find answers to your problems online, and will make sure you are using the most stable versions of several programming libraries such as ATL, MFC, etc.
I am writing this blog as I sit and am listening to the Virtualization session at the Longhorn Software Review. This one has been particularly interesting. The presenter has talked about what Longhorn develpers have done to make sure that the OS takes advantage of the Virtualization technology that is now offered with most mayor chip vendors.
If you want to take advantage of Virtualization with Longhorn, you will *NEED* a 64-bit box (x64) as this technology will not be supported in Longhorn 32-bit. Running Virtual machines does require a lot of memory and 64-bit is the way to go when you are going to be hosting lots of guest OS. There are many, many things that have happened under the hood to make sure Virtual Machines will run almost at full speed when running under Virtualization. This will definitely make things very interesting in the future for datacenter administrators and test servers. Can't wait to get my hands on one of those development versions
It has been mentioned in the past that we use
Acronis True Image in order to manage our x64 imaging needs. The procedure on how this was done, involved a mix of boot disks and the 32-bit version of True Image.
A couple of weeks ago, TrueImage announced the 64-bit version of both its workstation and server software. I just imaged an x64 server on the fly and it worked like a charm. Keep in mind that TrueImage allows you to create images without the need to reboot, which is a real time saver.
Now if only we could get an Itanium version...
In our sessions, we have taught you to how to use the PSDK compiler and the compiler included with Visual Studio 2005. The Intel sessions have also taught you how to use the Intel compiler and many have asked me lately why would someone use the Intel compiler given that there is a Microsoft C/C++ compiler?
First off, do not think of the Intel and Microsoft compilers are mutually exclusive when it comes to writing code for the EM64T or the Itanium. The libraries and even debugging tools that are generated by both compilers can be used interchangeably without any problems. That being said, you may now start to think that these two compilers compliment each other instead of compete with each other - this is the mayor key giveaway that we want to teach during our sessions.
If you are ever working with matrix multiplication or code that has to do with products between arrays, you might want to give the Intel compiler a try. It can easily vectorize your loops and you will be taking advantage of the 16 SSE3 registers that are now available in the EM64T. Furthermore, if you need to write inline assembly in code that will compile for 64-bit, the Intel compiler will allow you to do this as well.
Hopefully this will clear some doubts...remember, you can use both compilers to your advantage and make them work together so that your code will run a lot faster than it did before.