It still surprises me how many companies – especially those who should know better still don’t ship the necessary 64-bit componentry for their software.
Now don’t get me wrong – I am not for a moment suggesting that all software companies port all their apps to 64-bit for the sake of it. After all – unless an app requires more than 2GB RAM, there’s relatively little benefit to be had from porting to 64-bit.
The exception to this rule are apps that integrate into 64-bit versions of Windows. Things like drivers and Explorer shell extensions must be ported to 64-bit.
So must iFilters. These are the software components that allow Windows to index the contents of documents you store on your PC so that you can quickly and easily search for documents containing specific terms. Windows ships with iFilters for many common file types, and many 3rd parties offer iFilters for their proprietary file formats.
One particularly popular proprietary file format is Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF). Adobe has offered an iFilter for 32-bit Windows since the advent of iFilters back in the early days of Windows Vista. Adobe also shipped a 64-bit iFilter back in December 2008, but this OLD iFilter only worked on 64-bit editions of XP and Vista!
What about 64-bit versions of Windows 7?
Rather surprisingly, Adobe had this to say in the comments attached to their blog announcement of the old 64-bit iFilter:
http://blogs.adobe.com/acrobat/2008/12/adobe_pdf_ifilter_9_for_64bit.html
By Aman Deep Nagpal - 4:55 AM on June 28, 2010
Thank you all for your feedback. Adobe is working on the next version of iFilter which will support Windows 7 64-bit. But we don’t currently have an availability date to share.
Seriously?
Considering that 64-bit versions of Windows 7 are outstripping 32-bit versions by a large margin, you’re only now working on an iFilter for your own document format?
I mean, it’s not as if Windows 7 was suddenly thrust upon the market without AT LEAST a year of public beta. And it’s not as if Windows 7 was met with a luke-warm reception.
Come on Adobe, your customers deserve better.