Well, for one, when the auto-update attempts to run in Windows XP Pro x64, the setup file it downloads fails and says that 64-bit versions of Windows are not compatible.
And while there may not be benefits, it may in fact run faster. And I do prefer native builds. Since no one else in interested in providing one, I will attempt to compile one myself. I'm not a developer and I don't normally compile packages on Windows, but I do compile plenty of packages from source on Linux so if someone can please point me to some basic instructions on setting up a dev environment for compiling notepad++, I'll attempt it myself. Is notepad++ usually compiled with mingw or visual studio?
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I really do doubt you're going to see speed improvements - you normally only see that in computation-heavy stuff. If anything you might run a bit slower with an x64 build because of the larger data types... wanting to "go native" for everything is usually misguided. But let's know if it works out :)
Sounds weird that the updater fails btw, that's definitely something that should be looked into.
NP++ is built with Visual Studio, you should probably be able to build it with one of the free Express editions - that doesn't have x64 support though, so you'd need to either do commandline build with the SDK version of the compiler, or integrate the SDK compiler with the Express edition VS (unless of course you have access to VS200x pro).
Ontop of that you'll have to build Scintilla for x64, which is probably doable - at least I found some google references to Scintilla + x64. NP++ itself likely isn't 64bit-clean, though. And then you have to do 64bit versions of the plugins you want to use, which pose additional potential 64bit-cleanliness problems.
All that probably for nothing.
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x32 build: 0 error(s), 185 warning(s) (all of them go away with _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS and __STDC_WANT_SECURE_LIB__, though - but imho those are valid warnings)
x64 build: 359 error(s), 982 warning(s) (948 warnings with the two above defines... funny that it doesn't go down to 797).
...so there's "a bit of" fixing up to do :)
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Some apps don't run faster in x64 mode. Some do. I've seen some run 30% faster. However, the big thing is that I only run 64-bit operating systems, and have for the past 5 years. I hate having to run 32-bit apps via WOW64. It just makes sense to run native apps. On my Linux partition, I'm running 100% 64-bit app. For many, if not most apps, compiling in 64-bit mode is pretty simple. Push come to shove I will attempt it myself, but I don't have a dev environment set up in Windows, and I've never tried compiling notepad++ specifically. So I was hoping the author would offer x64 builds. There may be others who are interested in them as well.
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Very few applications have real benefit from x64 ports - most run pretty much without speed difference, and some even become slightly slower. I can't personally see what kind of gain NP++ would get from a 64bit port, it's not like it's doing heavy calculations where it can take advantage of the extra registers, and dunno about the additional memory space either - I don't think the "open huge documents" problem is related to lack of address space.
What's your problem with WoW64, apart from philosophical purity? :) 32bit [b]is[/b] a native submode of x86-64, it's not like it's emulation.
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I also need an x64 version of np++. I say need because my target environment does not have WOW64. Has there been any progress or changes regarding this since OP posted?
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Unless you need to edit files of size greater than 2GB (!!), the only possible reason to need a 64-bit version that I can think of, would be to access a plugin that needed 64-bits (pretty unlikely).
Windows programs such as NP++ generally spend most of their time inside the Windows API, and from within WOW, this API will run in native 64-bit mode anyway.
David
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The file size limit is actually nearer 5-600 MB's. And in my daily work, i bump into log files this size once or twice a week.
Yes, there are better tools out there to handle big log files, but i have the memory in my machine, it’s there to use. And i happen to like using Notepad++ to analyze these log files.
So - i vote for an official 64 bit build.
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To my knowledge there are some environments of Windows where 32-bit software will not run. As far as I know the 64-bit Windows PE (build to recover or to boot form USB drive/CD) only executes native 64-bit software. This limitation exists because the WOW64 layer is simply missing in such environments. Because of this limitation there might be a need for a 64-bit build other than to edit files greater than 2 GB.
Regards,
Thomas
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As mentioned, NP++ would not run in a purely x64 environment like x64 WinPE. I also might want to open a file greater than 2GB with the hex editor to analyze. I would imagine that NP++ is used primarily by technical professionals who work on esoteric environments and issues, so not creating native binaries limits its usefulness.
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Is there any chance of seeing a x64 build? Or perhaps some instructions on how I might compile one myself?
Well, for one, when the auto-update attempts to run in Windows XP Pro x64, the setup file it downloads fails and says that 64-bit versions of Windows are not compatible.
And while there may not be benefits, it may in fact run faster. And I do prefer native builds. Since no one else in interested in providing one, I will attempt to compile one myself. I'm not a developer and I don't normally compile packages on Windows, but I do compile plenty of packages from source on Linux so if someone can please point me to some basic instructions on setting up a dev environment for compiling notepad++, I'll attempt it myself. Is notepad++ usually compiled with mingw or visual studio?
I really do doubt you're going to see speed improvements - you normally only see that in computation-heavy stuff. If anything you might run a bit slower with an x64 build because of the larger data types... wanting to "go native" for everything is usually misguided. But let's know if it works out :)
Sounds weird that the updater fails btw, that's definitely something that should be looked into.
NP++ is built with Visual Studio, you should probably be able to build it with one of the free Express editions - that doesn't have x64 support though, so you'd need to either do commandline build with the SDK version of the compiler, or integrate the SDK compiler with the Express edition VS (unless of course you have access to VS200x pro).
Ontop of that you'll have to build Scintilla for x64, which is probably doable - at least I found some google references to Scintilla + x64. NP++ itself likely isn't 64bit-clean, though. And then you have to do 64bit versions of the plugins you want to use, which pose additional potential 64bit-cleanliness problems.
All that probably for nothing.
I just did a test with VS2008:
x32 build: 0 error(s), 185 warning(s) (all of them go away with _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS and __STDC_WANT_SECURE_LIB__, though - but imho those are valid warnings)
x64 build: 359 error(s), 982 warning(s) (948 warnings with the two above defines... funny that it doesn't go down to 797).
...so there's "a bit of" fixing up to do :)
Why bother? It's not really going to gain you anything.
Some apps don't run faster in x64 mode. Some do. I've seen some run 30% faster. However, the big thing is that I only run 64-bit operating systems, and have for the past 5 years. I hate having to run 32-bit apps via WOW64. It just makes sense to run native apps. On my Linux partition, I'm running 100% 64-bit app. For many, if not most apps, compiling in 64-bit mode is pretty simple. Push come to shove I will attempt it myself, but I don't have a dev environment set up in Windows, and I've never tried compiling notepad++ specifically. So I was hoping the author would offer x64 builds. There may be others who are interested in them as well.
Very few applications have real benefit from x64 ports - most run pretty much without speed difference, and some even become slightly slower. I can't personally see what kind of gain NP++ would get from a 64bit port, it's not like it's doing heavy calculations where it can take advantage of the extra registers, and dunno about the additional memory space either - I don't think the "open huge documents" problem is related to lack of address space.
What's your problem with WoW64, apart from philosophical purity? :) 32bit [b]is[/b] a native submode of x86-64, it's not like it's emulation.
I'm interested. For the same reason. Hoping to one day soon avoid the need to run the WOW64 layer completely.
x86 build cannot edit file inside \windows\system32 directory. Windows redirect it to \windows\Syswow64
shariat: all it takes to fix that is a call to Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection(), no need for a x64 build :)
I also need an x64 version of np++. I say need because my target environment does not have WOW64. Has there been any progress or changes regarding this since OP posted?
Unless you need to edit files of size greater than 2GB (!!), the only possible reason to need a 64-bit version that I can think of, would be to access a plugin that needed 64-bits (pretty unlikely).
Windows programs such as NP++ generally spend most of their time inside the Windows API, and from within WOW, this API will run in native 64-bit mode anyway.
David
The file size limit is actually nearer 5-600 MB's. And in my daily work, i bump into log files this size once or twice a week.
Yes, there are better tools out there to handle big log files, but i have the memory in my machine, it’s there to use. And i happen to like using Notepad++ to analyze these log files.
So - i vote for an official 64 bit build.
Hi,
To my knowledge there are some environments of Windows where 32-bit software will not run. As far as I know the 64-bit Windows PE (build to recover or to boot form USB drive/CD) only executes native 64-bit software. This limitation exists because the WOW64 layer is simply missing in such environments. Because of this limitation there might be a need for a 64-bit build other than to edit files greater than 2 GB.
Regards,
Thomas
As mentioned, NP++ would not run in a purely x64 environment like x64 WinPE. I also might want to open a file greater than 2GB with the hex editor to analyze. I would imagine that NP++ is used primarily by technical professionals who work on esoteric environments and issues, so not creating native binaries limits its usefulness.