I never tried the beta, but recently tried setting up a new machine with XP64 (can be ordered that way from Dell).

It may well be a fine OS, but there are a few things that make it not the right answer for my desktop at this time:

1.) Several of my peripherals don't yet have drivers available.

2.) Several pieces of necessary software can't be readily installed. They may be 32-bit applications, but the software is installed using 16-bit installers. Some of these apps are a few years old and a little bit outside of the mainstream, so a prompt solution from the vendors is unlikely, IMHO.

If I had a compelling need for 64-bitness, I'd do more legwork to find out about expected availability of drivers, upgrade a couple of fairly inexpensive peripherals, look for workarounds to the application installation problems, etc. I don't, though, so it's XP32 for the immediate future, with all of my "must haves" working very satisfactorily.

Don't let this scare you away - such problems may not touch you at all - but be aware.