Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

OFF-Topic: If anyone is interested... I am working on a tool that allows one to easily enable/disable Nvidia PowerMizer on battery mode.

Here is a screen shot of my current work. I hope that I can make it work fully. So don't hold your breath.
P.S: by Geforce I also mean Quadro... but I did not test yet under Quadro drivers.

 

not to kill your motive, but you know one already exists, right? let me find the link, ill update it.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21782

 

LOL Right!
The difference is that MINE WORKS!
This one does a run-time error if you click on any of its buttons. You need an extra library. And it's not Vista ready (does not prompt for elevation when it needs to)

My application is completely independent. Technically it will run under Windows 95 all to way up to Windows 7. Rock solid! (Which explain why my application is bigger in size)

 

no it doesnt, you just have to run as admin. i use it, just used it on win7 too, it works perfectly. i mean, by all means, im up for testing a program, but powermizer switch works great as is.

 

so when installing windows vista after having xp on the system already... there is a d drive i would want to download all my drivers to? once all of them are downloaded to the d drive i should then save it via my external usb hard drive? then if i ever want to reinstall everything back to original settings i would run the vista cd and then plug in my external usb hd and move everything over to the computer again? or do i just leave it on the d drive and there is no need to re-install drivers? just wipe the windows clean and good to go? im so confused, i apologize that i sound like such an amateur right now but i didn't know there was a d drive in addition to a c drive? i thought the c drive was the hard drive and d was the dvd/cd drive? please advise...

also is this process any different for xp is i wanted to have the drivers all saved to the d drive versus the c drive? right now i just download the drivers for xp and let them install in the c: area automatically wherever it goes.

i want to be able to streamline everything and not have to worry about "o man this stinks, i have some errors i can't get rid of, i know i should just wipe my system clean and start fresh, but it's such a hassle, i will just deal with the errors because it's such a pain to reinstall back to original settings" that is what i want to prevent, i want it set up into an easy plan that will allow me to do a few things and restore back to normal after reinstalling windows....

also does everyone agree vista 64 bit is better than 32? or are only a couple people saying that? from my internet research, many programs are not "compatible w/ 64 bit?" also would 2, 2gb modules= 4gb total be good memory? or would that be mediocre/average in vista? i know in xp it flies.

 

yes, agreed absolutely. and there is almost no lack of 64 bit compatibility. some (by which i mean most) programs may not be MADE for 64, but other than core level (kernal) driver requirements, 64 bit emulates 32 bit without issue, and without loss of speed. and it is a good amount of ram -- its what most of us here use.

 

It does not emulate...
To stay simple, each instructions of the processor are a set of bits (binary digits, 1 and 0) which grouped together is called a word. To processor reads the word and executes it. On a 32-bit CPU, each word is 32-bit long (if it is shorter, the missing bits are set to 0 (no current)). Today's 64-bit processor such what you have in your system is based on AMD64 technology (from AMD, aka x64), which is a modified version of our 32-bit processor (named x86, by Intel) which it's main feature is to execute 64-bit long instructions. This mean each word is 64-bit long.

When you run a 32-bit application on a 64-bit enabled processor (meaning you have a 64-bit OS), the 32-bit long word is sent to the processor, and the rest of missing 32-bit to make 64-bit are set to 0's. It's a little more complex than that, but in a simplified overview, that how it works. So there is no emulation, , no speed lost, no compatibility issue (again I am simplifying things), and everyone is happy.

When you use a 32-bit OS, the processor locks down it's extended version of instructions, and only reads 32-bit words.

A word is constituted of several part. Simplifying quiet a bit the system here, each word has 2 main parts. Operation Code and Operand (Address).

Good, now I just gave a quick and ultra light overview of a university course, which will also make you understand why the 32-bit CPU has the 4GB limit and the 64-bit has 16 Exabytes (17 179 869 184 GB... yes Gigabyte!). And if you think we will never reached that amount... well the same was said with the 32-bit CPU, and now Dell already offer Core i7 system with 24GB of RAM... so we are getting there pretty fast.

 

sorry, BAD word choice on my part, i just didnt want to go into details. the thing is that there ARE compatibility issues with kernel level drivers. you need 64 bit code to execute there.

 

is the 64 bit vista called vista "ultimate" ?? im trying to understand the dif. between vista premium, vista business, vista ultimate, and vista 64 bit? im assuming 64 bit=ultimate? not sure though.... it also seems like with movie maker, only certain vista editions come with it and only certain editions allow you to create HD videos w/ movie maker..or can you get 64 bit in business too?


FROM MICROSOFT:

"If you're shopping for a new PC you're probably going to come across systems that are designated "64-bit." These are computers running 64-bit editions of Windows Vista, typically with 4GB of memory or more. Compared to 32-bit systems, which top out at around 3GB of memory, 64-bit PCs offer added responsiveness for people who are running a lot of applications at the same time and switching between them frequently."

i think that means most people on here would want 64 then??
so you think i can call Dell and ask for a swapout of my vista biz for a vista ultimate 64 cd?

furthermore, are there ANY advantages to having vista biz 32 over ultimate 64 or biz 64?

 

Right... and that's pretty complex to explain... and it's a mixture of several factors why Windows only can run 64-bit drivers... a long the line Windows is one of the cause, but not the only one. As it's technically doable in a perfect simplified world as I explained on my previous post, but it's not.

Fun fact:
You can run 64-bit application onto a 32-bit CPU! How? You use a program which will split each instruction of the 64-bit program into 2 (so 2x 32-bit instruction). The performance will be utterly garbage, especially that the 64-bit CPU support new operation codes, but doable.