> Yes and no. While x64 has existed as long as you say, 'proper' Windows support didn't > start to appear until maybe a year into the Vista cycle. Driver support on XP x64 > never materialized and the early Vista drivers were extremely problematic.
I guess your experience on vista x64 drivers depends on the hardware you used. At work we bought two identical dell laptops that came with 32bit vista installed. I reinstalled 64 bit and had less driver issues than the one running 32 bit. Mainly the network driver seemed to have massive problems under 32bit, because intel had been more obsessed with sorting out a 64 bit driver.