Is Vista x64 worth the trouble?

[cnico88]

So, just a few minutes ago I added two more gigs of ram to my machine totaling a round 4GB. I run Vista Ultimate 32-bit and I am very happy with it because it has drivers for everything I am using and all is stable. Right now Vista recognizes 3.5 GB of all my ram (3583 MB) to be exact. I know x64 Vista will recognize and use all of it, my only concern is lack of support for applications. I did my research and looked for drivers for my hardware and it looks like everything will be supported out of the box. I just want to know if 32-bit applications are still compatible with x64. I know that x64 doesn't run any apps that are 3.1xx but that isn't a concern to me. Thanks for the help guys.

[Mak213]

You will have to check each application separately. Some might be compatible. Some will be. Others wont be. Some might have a specific 64 Bit version. Some might not. It depends on the software you use.

[cnico88]

so a dual boot for a while would be my best bet?

[aaronkupen]

When I used Windows x64, I never really ran into issues. If you have above 3 Gigs of ram in a 32 bit system you might actually run into Vista update problems so I would recommend just going with the 64 bit OS; however, with only 4 gigabytes of ram both operating systems will probably end up performing the same. <-- But from my experience, I ran into more problems having more than 3 gigs on 32 bit vista than with working with 64 bit vista.

[cnico88]

Originally Posted by aaronkupen

When I used Windows x64, I never really ran into issues. If you have above 3 Gigs of ram in a 32 bit system you might actually run into Vista update problems so I would recommend just going with the 64 bit OS; however, with only 4 gigabytes of ram both operating systems will probably end up performing the same. <-- But from my experience, I ran into more problems having more than 3 gigs on 32 bit vista than with working with 64 bit vista.

was it really buggy or it didn't update at all? I just ran it the whole day so far and I can see a increase in performance when it comes to games. Overall surfing and small tasks also work fine. Like I said I am only going to gain about 512MB more ram if I upgrade.

[aaronkupen]

Originally Posted by cnico88

was it really buggy or it didn't update at all? I just ran it the whole day so far and I can see a increase in performance when it comes to games. Overall surfing and small tasks also work fine. Like I said I am only going to gain about 512MB more ram if I upgrade.

Some updates flat out didn't update. And actually, from what I've read on Tom'sHardware.com, since you are on a 64 bit OS a lot of your programs will be using more memory which kind of cancels out the added memory that you get from the switch.

[darsunt]

It will be very valuable a couple of years down the road. 64 bits, endless ram memory power!

Thanks for all the new users who are getting it now and working out all the bugs for the rest of us!

[cnico88]

so is a dual boot attainable if I partition the drive and leave my 32-bit on there?

[Mak213]

Anything is obtainable if you know how. Yes just partition the drive and install 64 BIt.

[Eric1]

When I made a duel boot with windows 32bit and windows 64bit I had problems. However I was making a duel boot with XP32bit and Vista 64 bit. Maybe that was the problem.