I’ve written about the official launching of 64bit Windows XP Professional, as well as the news of Microsoft Servers Migrating To 64bit last week. Unfortunately there are still some obstacles for Windows users to migrate to 64bit, One of the obstacles is lack of support from atleast 2 major antivirus vendors like Symantec and McAfee.

In a statement released to Ziff Davis Internet News, Symantec said it would be “monitoring the adoption of x64 very closely” but confirmed that virus protection on x64 was not yet available.

According to some users of Norton Internet Security 2005 under the newly released 64bit Windows XP Professional, they reveived error message saying “Symantec currently does not sell any consumer products that are certified to be compatible with 64-bit processors and operating systems.”.

The company said its Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.0 will eventually support Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, but no timeline for full support was provided.

Whereas for McAfee, they have the same idea of 64-bit computing is not mature enough to justify a full anti-virus rollout yet.

Marc Solomon, senior product manager McAfee’s consumer strategy and market group, said the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is initially geared only towards developers, gamers and early adopter enthusiasts. “We’ll go to market as the business dictates. We don’t see consumer adoption for 64-bit operating systems starting very soon,” Solomon said in an interview.

McAfee also do not think the 64bit market will mature until Longhorn ships or a bit after. At that time, there will be more drivers and software targeted at the consumer segment. However, on the enterprise side, McAfee does offer limited support for 64-bit systems. Unfortunately full anti-virus support isn’t expected until 2006.

[Source]

While 64bit is lacking of antivirus protection, fortunate enough we still atleast have 64-bit firewall for Windows. :)