This message is being sent to you from a Dell Studio XPS 435MT (2.66 GHz Core i7) running 32-bit XP Pro, so it can be done.
The machine came with Vista 64-bit, which was OK in itself, but it was just
utterly incompatible with all the rest of my hardware and software:
- No driver for my Logitech keyboard and mouse, so none of the extra functionality (e.g. scroll wheels and volume control) worked
- Incomplete 64-bit Java support
- No Flash player for 64-bit browsers
- No Cisco VPN client for any 64-bit OS (so no working at home)
- No Office Update for Office 2000
- No Palm Pilot desktop software
- No driver for my film negative scanner
- Quicken 2002 refused to run, even in XP compatiblity mode
- ...and so on.
So in the end it had to go, even though in lots of respects (e.g. power management) it is clearly streets ahead of XP.
I had no problem in getting all of the XP device drivers I need - either from dell.com or intel.com - and it all works perfectly. The only problem is that I paid for 6 GB of RAM and can only use 3...