E6400 WinXP...ugrade advice for Win7

I bought this back in late Feb of '09 with 32bit Windows Vista Business/XP Pro, and so far have been running just XP with no real isssues. I never intended on installing Vista, upgrading to Win 7 when available. Question is if it's possible to get them to somehow downgrade me to Win 7 Home Premium (don't want to spen the extra $$), and in 64 bit (I'm running 4 MB of RAM). The Dell rep said the only Upgrade I could get was to the same versions, i.e. from Pro to Pro, 32 bit to 32 bit. I read here a while back of someone talking a rep into a 32-64 bit upgrade. Anyone have any advive?
Thanks!

 

I can't help regarding the best way to chat up Dell, but I would point out that one advantage of Win 7 Pro is that it supports the XP mode virtual PC wherein you can install and run any old applications that won't install in the normal Win 7.

John

 

Thanks John,
I realize that and intend on getting Pro when I buy my new desktop soon. But this laptop actually belongs to my Mom. I've been using it until she's ready to start learning to use a PC from scratch and thought the best thing to do might be to just start her off on 7 from the get go. I don't think she is likely to need compatibility with XP. Any thoughts on 32/64?

 

I've just installed W7 Pro - 64 on my E6400 and it is running fine. However, at the moment I can't see much benefit of the 64 bit OS aside from it using 4GB instead of ~3.5GB of RAM.

I doubt that your mother would see any benefits of going to a 64-bit OS and it might introduce some unexpected incompatibilities.

John