Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit or 64bit upgrade on my laptop?
Answers:
sourwire is wrong - you can run either 32 bit or 64 bit on AMD 64 bit processors - they are clever that way.
I would stick with 32 bit because 64 bit has a lot of additional security enabled. It uses the Trusted Computing platform and this requires that *all* kernel mode device drivers are signed. This means that there are not very many of them, so most of your devices will not work with Vista 64 bit and it is unlikely to change fast.
sheepbalz is wrong on RAM - Vista 32 bit can only address about 3 GB of RAM. It has an addressable space of 4GB, but the top part is reserved for memory mapped devices and so cannot be accessed as RAM. Never install more than 3GB RAM in a 32 bit PC - you are throwing money away.
Impossible! 32 bit OS won't work on a 64 bit processor.
I would suggest you to go with XP. vista is too slow.
You would be best off sticking with 32bit visita unless you are planning on having more than 4 gigs of ram in your laptop. 64bit vista doesn't offer much more than the 32 version other than being able to address more ram.
64bit OS certainly does improve the performance of your computer with Vista, but be aware that some of the drivers and a lot of the programs out there are not fully 64bit compatible. 64bit OS also helps with memory in that it can recognize more than 3.5GB, whereas 32bit does not.
My suggestion is not to go with the 64bit OS because your laptop probably wont be able to utilize the full capacity of the 64bit OS so you'll basically gain very little performance but run into compatibility issues.
The first thing you must do is to make sure your particular CPU supports x64.
Most mid- to high-end desktop processors from AMD or Intel within the last year have x64 capability.
The second thing you must check is to see if all your hardware has x64 Vista driver support, either included in the OS or downloadable from the hardware vendor. At this point, many motherboard makers have failed to include the latest 5.1 sound and network drivers, and you might have to look to the chipset maker for drivers.
You don't have to worry about 32 bit software compatibility in Windows Vista or XP x64, since they run natively and seamlessly, but drivers are an absolute killer. If you happen to find 32 bit drivers for your device but no 64 bit drivers, you're out of luck if you're running x64 Windows XP or Vista. For this reason, x64 edition for a typical consumer is usually not very practical because there are simply too many hardware peripherals you won't be able to use.
The bottom line is that you have to look at your own hardware limitations before you can make any kind of a transition. If all the hardware you want to use will work on Vista x64, it's well worth the transition.
I would stick with the 32-Bit because unfortunately there arent many software or hardware venders supporting vista as it stands. 64-Bit has even less support than the 32-Bit vista. Your compuer came equiped with 32-Bit drivers, 64-Bit drivers may cause problems! Hope this helps 754-234-1409
sourwire - AMD 64's are 64bits!
Stay with 32b, there are not enough programs on the 64bit platform yet to make full use of it, so you may get incompatability errors
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