Forum OpenACS Development: Re: Win32-OpenACS - Version 1.16

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Posted by Ryan Gallimore on
Thanks, Maurizio, that's great news.

Are there any plans for a 64 bit version?

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Posted by Maurizio Martignano on
Dear Ryan,
this is a good question and deserves a proper answer. I'll try my best.

First of all let me state that the Win32-OpenACS 1.16 installation procedure as well as all its executables have been tested and do work on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2003 and 2008 (both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions). Of course in the case of Windows 64 architectures they run on WOW (Windows On Windows - the Windows 32 emulator running on top of Windows 64). In several instances, disregarding the emulation middleware, Win32-OpenACS runs faster on Windows 64 systems than on Windows 32 systems.

Now some few considerations about the future.

Somehow all server hardware is shifting from 32 bit to 64 bit architecture... but the software, especially the applications are not following this path at the same pace.

For example I haven't yet found a version PostgreSQL for Windows 64 (if you do know something about it please let me know).

As you know Win32-OpenACS consists of plenty of different pieces of software. I have made sure that these pieces compile and work correctly on Windows 32. This requires knowing exactly what the compiler and the linker do, changing their parameters as necessary and so on...
Making sure that all these pieces of software compile and work correctly on Windows 64 it's not a minor,trivial task.
I don't even know if all the involved pieces of code have been developed/written taking into account the (Windows) 64 bit architecture.

I was personally thinking about starting to work on a native port to Windows 64 next year, towards the second quarter. Anyhow PostgreSQL may still keep being a Windows 32 application.

Anyhow the good point of all this blah/blah is that now, today, Win32-OpenACS installs and runs properly also on Windows 64 systems.

Hope it helps,
Maurizio