I could not agree more. I have been using Windows XP 64-bit for close to 2 years now. I am mostly a gamer, however I still dabble in a little bit of everything. I have never had a serious driver or compatibility issue.

There was only instance for software for a digital sound recorder that you could not get the sound clips off unless you had their software installed. It refused to install on anything unless it was XP 32-bit. This was more poor writing on the developers end then XP incompatibility.

If MS would stop trying to force Vista/7 I would recommend XP 64-bit to any gamer. But since MS is making pretty much all new system tools (could not think of a better term) such as Directx 10 or even base drivers for newer hardware not available to XP the inevitable move to Vista/7 for gamers is eminent. If MS would keep supporting XP and make XP versions of their new software I personally would see no reason to move from XP 64-bit

Up to about a year ago I was still supporting a MPE/iX HP3000 machine. . .I never even knew it existed till I started my job.

As a gamer at heart, XP 64 was really the only good choice for me. When you have a decent gaming box, you will most likely have over 4 GB of memory (assuming ~1 GB video card and 3+ GB of system RAM). If you try to use any non-64 bit OS your total memory addresses collect up to 4 GB of memory. Any thing over is not able to be used.

On the subject of usefulness anything that can be used on XP can be used on XP 64. Now there are very few programs out there that can take advantage of the 64 bit operating system, but you still can install and use all 32 bit applications. XP 64 creates two folders for this "Program Files" and "Program Files(x86)". So your comment that it is not usable is completely false. You have all the usability of standard XP but some support of 64 bit applications.