Robert Moir said:
I suppose Microsoft releasing a 64bit version of Vista with only 5 years of
beta programs and so-on in advance must have taken Microsoft by surprise.
In all fairness, Windows Live OneCare was released less than a year ago after
extensive beta testing. After the initial release of 1.0, work continued to make
a Vista compatible version (x86) of version 1. Coding a security package for x64
is apparently quite different than doing so for the 32 bit OS. The priority was
to make the version 1 package available in more countries and to support Vista.
I can't speak to the resources that would be needed to code a version that would
run on x64 of Vista, but I can speculate that the installed base of users for 32
bit is significantly greater than that of x64 and the target audience for the
all-in-one, easy to use, "set it and forget it" concept of Windows Live OneCare
is not likely to be running Vista x64. At this point, a 64 bit OS is not what
your typical home user would be using, but the OS of an enthusiast who will want
mouch more control over the functions in their security package than what is
available in OneCare.
-steve