[Users] 64-bit Claws

[Andrej Kacian]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2017 18:36:34 -0400
<edwardp at linuxmail.org> wrote:

> The Claws web site references the 64-bit build as experimental, so I
> felt there was no harm in at least trying it out. It worked quite well.
> As you referenced in a previous message, it indeed picked up all of the
> accounts created with the 32-bit version and it was able to send and
> receive without any issues. 

The word "experimental" was originally not there when we first added
the 64-build, but soon after the release, there were several reports of
crashes (which did not happen with corresponding 32-bit release), so we
decided to mark it as experimental for now. I'm glad if it works for
you. :)

There is not much need for the 64-bit-ness in an e-mail program anyway
- so far, probably the only real reason I encountered was usage of
vcalendar plugin, with events far into the future - few hundreds of
years far.

> I normally do not use beta, pre-beta, or experimental software, but
> since this is Claws and as I'm familiar with it, I decided to make an
> exception. I am amazed that 64-bit Windows releases have been available
> for some time now, yet so little (to my knowledge) has been written to
> take advantage of it. The only software I'm presently aware of that is
> available for 64-bit Windows, is Firefox, Chrome, Vivaldi, LibreOffice
> and now, Claws (experimental). 

See above, unless the application works with large data in memory, or
with large individual numbers, or does CPU-intensive calculations which
can benefit from the extra registers. Browsers and e-mail clients
typically do not benefit from 64-bit too much.

> I am aware that, in general, early builds of any software
> could possibly contain bugs or have unexpected events occurring, like
> crashes, or data/profile being corrupted (the latter actually occurred
> a few times with stable Mozilla-derived software under (oddly) Linux).
> But in using the 64-bit Claws, there were no issues. My PC's aren't set
> up for a testing environment.

That's good, on my system (Windows 7 pro), the 64-bit build is rather
stable nowadays, I usually can't reproduce any of the crash bugs users
report (which is quite frustrating, as it makes it rather difficult to
fix those bugs for them).

> I have kept the downloaded 64-bit installer on the PC, in case I want to
> try it again. I also noticed that 32- and 64-bit software installs in
> different directories in Windows 7. Given this, is it actually possible
> to have both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Claws installed at the
> same time, on the same machine?

It is possible, but it's not straightforward. You have to make sure
you enter a different path in the installer when you install the second
version, and be aware that this will overwrite the install location in
Windows registry. The application itself doesn't touch the registry at
all, so if you can manage the two install locations manually,
e.g. creating desktop shortcuts as needed, or making sure to enter path
to correct version when upgrading, it should work.

The only possible issue I can think of is path to plugins stored in the
configuration - see the recent "usage of absolute paths in clawsrc"
thread on this mailing list. I do not remember offhand whether the
Windows version also stores full path by default.

Regards,
-- 
Andrej