[steveblue]

just got myself a new laptop with the following specs:

Intel® Mobile Core™2 Duo T7250 64Bit Processor(2 X 2.0GHz,2MB Advanced Smart Cache,800MHz)
512MB dedicated DDRIII MXM Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT VRAM, Support DirectX10
4GB DDRII 667Mhz Memory (2x2GB)

and came with Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium 32 bit, is it worth my while staying with this or using a Vista business 64bit install to get the best out of this laptop??

thank you
steve

[DrewWinters]

I would rather have 64-bit Business on mine than I would 32-bit Home Premium, but you'll want to make sure there are 64-bit drivers available for everything on your system prior to installing it. I'm used to playing around with the system and I can generally fix things on my own, so the occasion trifle with program incompatibility isn't much of an issue to me. That said, I haven't had almost any trouble with 64-bit Ultimate. I say "almost" only because I can't seem to get drivers for my printer. YMMV

[steveblue]

thanks for the feedback, Ive been leaning towards the vista business 64bit as my os of choice, and have already made sure that my laptop manufacturer has all the 64bit drivers on the service cd that came with my laptop, so mite just give it a try tomorrow

[D_block]

yea once u could get drivers, youi should go for it. i have xp pro in x64 still cant find drivers for my printer but im dual bootin with vista ultimate x86 so i do all my printing there

[xbigboss]

It's possible to build a 64bit version of the DVD and use the same key of the 32bit version?

[cluberti]

xbigboss, on Jan 22 2008, 12:42 PM, said:

It's possible to build a 64bit version of the DVD and use the same key of the 32bit version?

If the DVD is the same version of the OS, then usually you can (some OEMs keys only work with the version that shipped and the architecture though, so be careful). However, home premium keys and business keys are different, so I don't think it'll matter in this scenario - if you want x64 business, you'll have to buy a license.

[gosh]

I just installed Vista Business x64 on my home computer over the weekend. So far so good, although it seems i need to update my NIC drivers. Device manager shows the NIC's fine, but they don't show up in network connections. Vista is very memory hungry. Sometimes im idle and it's using 1 gig of ram!

-gosh

[DrewWinters]

x64 Vista does seem to use more RAM than the x86 version, but I wouldn't worry too much over how much it's using - it seems to be pretty good at getting rid of things if you start to run out of RAM. Superfetch keeps all sorts of things loaded into RAM so that your programs will load faster - but if you need the space, it'll kick them out.

That said, some programs are real RAM hogs... the Sidebar is said to be a real hog (it's useless for you so I cut it out with Vlite anyway) for instance. If you have Ultimate and use DreamScene, I've seen Dreamscene (+DeskScape) use over a 100mb of RAM! That's a lot for wallpaper! (It's so nifty though, it's worth it!)

If it bothers you, check out Vlite and get rid of some of the programs that are eating up your RAM.

Retail versions of Vista Ultimate come with both x64 and x86 versions; I presume the same key works for both. Other retail versions only come with the x86 version, but you can order the x64 for a minimal fee - I presume those keys are identical as well. However, OEM copies of Vista come with only x86 *OR* x64 versions, and therefore it only makes sense that those keys do NOT work for other copies. Then again, I haven't tested any of this, so I can't promise anything. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered saying anything... <shrug> take it for its worth.