An executive of Microsoft told an audience at the Intel Developer Forum that next month is the go-live date for 64-bit versions of Windows. The group vice president of platforms group at Microsoft and the head of its Windows efforts, Jim Allchin joined Pat Gelsinger, Intel vice president, on stage and said that the 64-bit desktop version of Windows will debut early next month, while a server version will hit the streets by the end of April. "We're locked on to 64-bit," Allchin told developers. "Now is the time to start converting your applications for 64-bit in a native way." In particular, Allchin and Gelsinger said that while most applications will be supported in an environment where Intel supports both 64- and 32-bit applications on the same processors, there would be the need to rewrite hardware drivers to take advantage of 64-bit-capable hardware. But the advantages will be tremendous, the two noted, with Gelsinger likening the 32-bit addressable space to the palm of his hand, while the 64-bit addressable space would cover the whole of the keynote stage. The difference is phenomenal -- moving from the 2 GB limit of RAM to 32 GB of physical RAM, and up to 16 TB of virtual memory. The 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 have long been in the workings, and Microsoft last month released a second release candidate of the operating system, which it previously promised to bring to market before the end of June of this year. The software, which will run both 32- and 64-bit apps natively, will run on Intel's own Xeon and Pentium 4 processors with Extended Memory 64 Technology, as well as Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 64 and Opteron processors, which have been waiting for a final version of Windows that can take advantage of the move to 64-bit for almost two years now. Also at Intel Developer Forum, Allchin pledged support for a variety of new processor-level technologies form Intel, saying that it will offer support for Intel's I/O Acceleration Technology in Longhorn and will also "make it available the day you ship it" on current versions of Windows Server. Allchin also said Microsoft would work to make its Virtual Server and Virtual PC products enabled for Intel's chip-level Virtualization Technology, and reiterated the company's stance that on multi-core systems, it would charge for software licenses by the processor, and not by the core.