Vista 32 or 64

I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of support
for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.

So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is any
better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC world is
ever going to move to 64 bit.

At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista 64
even though it doesn't on XP64.

But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet to
find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys doesn't
support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.

I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit PC,
but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act together
and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with support
for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Bull

It looks to me like you already decided.

"Bull" <> wrote in message
news:F1B9B094-AF3D-476F-BB9F-...
>I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of
>support
> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>
> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is
> any
> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC world
> is
> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>
> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista 64
> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>
> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet to
> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys
> doesn't
> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>
> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit
> PC,
> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act
> together
> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with support
> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Colin Barnhorst

If you don't have or want to have >4 GB of RAM, by all means use 32-bit
Vista. You'll be happier, and Norton will be able to slow it down
sufficiently for you.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Bull" <> wrote in message
news:F1B9B094-AF3D-476F-BB9F-...
>I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of
>support
> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>
> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is
> any
> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC world
> is
> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>
> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista 64
> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>
> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet to
> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys
> doesn't
> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>
> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit
> PC,
> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act
> together
> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with support
> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Charlie Russel - MVP

"Charlie Russel - MVP" <> wrote in message
news:B0FB7D23-35A9-423E-B644-...
> If you don't have or want to have >4 GB of RAM, by all means use 32-bit
> Vista. You'll be happier, and Norton will be able to slow it down
> sufficiently for you.
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>
>
> "Bull" <> wrote in message
> news:F1B9B094-AF3D-476F-BB9F-...
>>I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of
>>support
>> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>>
>> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is
>> any
>> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
>> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC
>> world is
>> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>>
>> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista
>> 64
>> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>>
>> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet
>> to
>> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys
>> doesn't
>> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>>
>> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit
>> PC,
>> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act
>> together
>> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with
>> support
>> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.
>

Colin Barnhorst

I decided to take the x64 plunge and bought Vista Ultimate 64-bit to go with
it. I'm happy to say that I have not had a single issue with it. After
reading all of the incompatibility horror stories, I was really worried that
I was going to get cut on the painful edge of a new product. I had managed
to regularly, accidentally, crash Vista RC1 32-bit last year and decided to
stick with XP until I was ready for a full PC upgrade.

Fortunately, all of my software runs flawlessly, even my older games which
have fairly heavy copy protection. Vista seems to be intelligent enough to
determine just how to execute each piece of software and they all co-exist
beautifully, 32-bit and 64-bit processes.

The only 3rd-party 64-bit drivers I have installed are for my nVidia 8800 GT
video card, and my Klegg NDAS NetDisk drive. Vista covered the rest.

I was starting to install VMware Workstation 5.5, but Vista warned me that I
was about to install a 32-bit driver, so I aborted. I'm still curious to
know what would have happened, but I value my free time enough to not want to
re-install everything if it hoses up the OS.

Anyway, as for installing Vista, it was completely painless. It's probably
the most straight-forward OS installation that I've performed since MS-DOS
6.22. Of course, it was an OEM installation that started with a freshly
formatted hard drive.

I've never heard of an "Upgrade" to any version of Windows going very well,
and that may be the source of your frustration. Try wiping the hard drive
partition and starting from scratch with all of the newest drivers -- I bet
you'll have a much better experience.


"Bull" wrote:

> I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of support
> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>
> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is any
> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC world is
> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>
> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista 64
> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>
> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet to
> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys doesn't
> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>
> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit PC,
> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act together
> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with support
> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Unfriendly Fire

VMWare Workstation 6.0 works well with Vista 64.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Unfriendly Fire" <> wrote in
message news:14D05C47-4AC0-4096-BC1B-...
>I decided to take the x64 plunge and bought Vista Ultimate 64-bit to go
>with
> it. I'm happy to say that I have not had a single issue with it. After
> reading all of the incompatibility horror stories, I was really worried
> that
> I was going to get cut on the painful edge of a new product. I had
> managed
> to regularly, accidentally, crash Vista RC1 32-bit last year and decided
> to
> stick with XP until I was ready for a full PC upgrade.
>
> Fortunately, all of my software runs flawlessly, even my older games which
> have fairly heavy copy protection. Vista seems to be intelligent enough
> to
> determine just how to execute each piece of software and they all co-exist
> beautifully, 32-bit and 64-bit processes.
>
> The only 3rd-party 64-bit drivers I have installed are for my nVidia 8800
> GT
> video card, and my Klegg NDAS NetDisk drive. Vista covered the rest.
>
> I was starting to install VMware Workstation 5.5, but Vista warned me that
> I
> was about to install a 32-bit driver, so I aborted. I'm still curious to
> know what would have happened, but I value my free time enough to not want
> to
> re-install everything if it hoses up the OS.
>
> Anyway, as for installing Vista, it was completely painless. It's
> probably
> the most straight-forward OS installation that I've performed since MS-DOS
> 6.22. Of course, it was an OEM installation that started with a freshly
> formatted hard drive.
>
> I've never heard of an "Upgrade" to any version of Windows going very
> well,
> and that may be the source of your frustration. Try wiping the hard drive
> partition and starting from scratch with all of the newest drivers -- I
> bet
> you'll have a much better experience.
>
>
> "Bull" wrote:
>
>> I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of
>> support
>> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>>
>> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is
>> any
>> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
>> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC
>> world is
>> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>>
>> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista
>> 64
>> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>>
>> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet
>> to
>> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys
>> doesn't
>> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>>
>> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit
>> PC,
>> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act
>> together
>> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with
>> support
>> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Charlie Russel - MVP

Vista upgrades are still clean installs of the OS. The issues with XP
upgrades do not exist with Vista because Vista Setup uses block copying
rather than XP's file copying. There are no 'fragments' of code left from
the earlier OS because every byte in a block is specified as data or zero.

"Unfriendly Fire" <> wrote in
message news:14D05C47-4AC0-4096-BC1B-...
>I decided to take the x64 plunge and bought Vista Ultimate 64-bit to go
>with
> it. I'm happy to say that I have not had a single issue with it. After
> reading all of the incompatibility horror stories, I was really worried
> that
> I was going to get cut on the painful edge of a new product. I had
> managed
> to regularly, accidentally, crash Vista RC1 32-bit last year and decided
> to
> stick with XP until I was ready for a full PC upgrade.
>
> Fortunately, all of my software runs flawlessly, even my older games which
> have fairly heavy copy protection. Vista seems to be intelligent enough
> to
> determine just how to execute each piece of software and they all co-exist
> beautifully, 32-bit and 64-bit processes.
>
> The only 3rd-party 64-bit drivers I have installed are for my nVidia 8800
> GT
> video card, and my Klegg NDAS NetDisk drive. Vista covered the rest.
>
> I was starting to install VMware Workstation 5.5, but Vista warned me that
> I
> was about to install a 32-bit driver, so I aborted. I'm still curious to
> know what would have happened, but I value my free time enough to not want
> to
> re-install everything if it hoses up the OS.
>
> Anyway, as for installing Vista, it was completely painless. It's
> probably
> the most straight-forward OS installation that I've performed since MS-DOS
> 6.22. Of course, it was an OEM installation that started with a freshly
> formatted hard drive.
>
> I've never heard of an "Upgrade" to any version of Windows going very
> well,
> and that may be the source of your frustration. Try wiping the hard drive
> partition and starting from scratch with all of the newest drivers -- I
> bet
> you'll have a much better experience.
>
>
> "Bull" wrote:
>
>> I have an Athlon64 PC running WindowsXP64 and am tired of the lack of
>> support
>> for it. It seems like very little consumer software works on it. My bad.
>>
>> So, I'm going to replace it and I'm wondering support for 64 bit PCs is
>> any
>> better on Vista than XP. I've been burned once so I'm not eager to buy
>> another dead end, unsupported OS, but I was just wondering if the PC
>> world is
>> ever going to move to 64 bit.
>>
>> At least one data point is that Norton 360 is supposed to work on Vista
>> 64
>> even though it doesn't on XP64.
>>
>> But what about Linksys device drivers? I had to go hunting the internet
>> to
>> find a device driver for my Linksys wireless adapter because Linksys
>> doesn't
>> support XP64. I don't recall seeing anything for Vista 64 either.
>>
>> I guess I'm probably going to play it safe and get Vista 32 on my 64 bit
>> PC,
>> but it seems rather ridiculous that Microsoft couldn't get its act
>> together
>> and produce a 64 bit OS that provides a painless upgrade path with
>> support
>> for 32 bit applications and device drivers.

Colin Barnhorst

"Unfriendly Fire" <> wrote in
message news:14D05C47-4AC0-4096-BC1B-...
>I decided to take the x64 plunge and bought Vista Ultimate 64-bit to go
>with
> it.

A very intelligent move on your part. Keep up the good work

Garblich Piotr

Neither

Mr. Clemens