XP to Vista.. go 32 or 64? good or bad idea?

For some reason I have the itch to go to Vista; its been for quite awhile, but I'vealways stuck with XP32 since the long reputation of being a superior performer.

I asked a few months back and a few people noted that Vista SP1 with updated drivers actually performed pretty much identically to XP32. (A later thread suggested Crysis suffered horribly under Vista, which seems to contradict, which worries me.)

I have some points of interest, and a lot of questions, below. I'm a developer, I dont' mind getting dirty and working at it.. I just dont' want to spend 10 hours upgrading to find out performance sucks, or that I've gone to vista 32 when I should have gone 64, or vica versa, and so on. Its stuff you need to have done, to have experience with.. cannot guess from one side. So I'm hoping you kind souls..

.. can help me out, despite this long long post

- I have the Clevo 570RU (NP5790 model, a year old); M8800GTX installed.

- Vista pre-update scan tool says Vista can't support 8800gtx but go ahead anyway. LOL I'm sure I can disregard this warning.

- I'd like to 'upgrade' rather than clean install; I have too many apps, and installing them again makes me cry inside. (On the other hand, it does let you have a nice clean breezy box, which might be nice too. Maybe I should ghost the drive to a backup, try clear vista, and have the option to go back...) -- is it really bad idea to do an 'upgrade' rather than clean install?

- I picked up Vista Ultimate, which includes 32 and 64 bit version.. so which to go for? (I do have 4GB installed, and am used to having only 3.x GB of it )

- I had read repeatedly that Vista 32 driver were far superior, especially for video cards; but I have also read people saying vista 64 is actually more stable and higher performer. I just don't know what to believe .. if 64-bit performs better, and I can get the extra RAM that is sitting wasted, that'd be sweet. (People still say XP32 beats Vista, too, so I really don't know what to think

- I don't want to lose any performance!

- I've got a dozen games installed, including Steam; dozens of applications, SDKs and so forth.. will most of it 'just work' after 'upgrading', or will I have to end up uninstalling/deleting and re-installing most of this anyway? Avast AV I can always reinstall. To be a keener, should I make a long list of every app installed so I can guess what is just 'lost' during upgrade, or does 'upgrade' actually tend to keep all the apps? (ie: Some apps are tricky.. like vmware. Will it still work, or be all screwed up?) If most apps will be screwed up, then it suggests using a clean install anyway. (I suppose can alwayd do an upgrade, and see if it goes sour, then do a clean install.)

- During 'upgrade' mode, I'm assuming it'll keep my filesystem; I really shouldn't need an exhaustive backup of random files on the drive right.. its just OS files that get pissed on? I'm running wih NTFS now.

- Drivers are always worrysome; I got XP32 fro XoticPC and of course went to SP3 and have installed various drivers from Sager, NVidea etc randomly over the year. With Vista SP1 .. it suggests I pre-grab 4965AGN driver from Intel for after Vista install; Sager drivers has a giant wifi driver package as well, so .. intel or sager, fine. Sager has an 8800gtx driver for vista. (and a reaaaaly slow download site ) --- should I just go to Vista SP1, and then start installing drives from Sagers site .. or does SP1 actually cover most of that and I shouldn't need to suck drivers down right away?

- should I go to beta SP2?

- SHOULD i JUST STAY WITH XP32?

Worries worries.. seems like such a hastle to upgrade OSes for Windows .. but somehow, I have the itch

jeff

 

(and I did use the search function .. lots of contradictory info

 

Any idea how 'long' it takes to run an upgrade, or a clean install, of Vista 32 or 64?

ie: Is this a 2 hour job, a 4 hour job, or a nightmare 10+ hour all night let it chug job?

jeff

 

takes less than 30min for an OS install.... for a typical current system.

I have a dual Windows boot...
1) installed XP Pro 32-bit first.
2) then installed Vista Ultimate 64-bit on a small 30GB partition

And I also am running Ubuntu in a small 10GB partition.

I mainly stick with XP for my uses and gaming. I only switch to Vista when I need to test programs or use it to help people walkthrough issues if they only use Vista.

 

If you have XP already installed, stick to it. Unless...
If you have to reinstall/format, go for .Vista (except if you have to buy it).
If you have 4GB of RAM, go for 64-bit. Unless there are drivers problems.

Takes less than an hour (about 30min. for me) to clean install. Few hours to upgrade. Installing SP1 took about an hour.

Basically, what I'm saying is that if you're happy with XP now, just stick to it unless there's valid reason to upgrade, like computer too slow and needs a reformat. If you have 4GB of RAM, get the x64 but make sure all the drivers have a x64 version (there is no way to makea 32-bit driver work on x64 unless you repack the drivers). I have x64 and I'm stuck with a laser printer that doesn't want to work and I'll have to find a way to get 32-bit on my laptop because I have to use some USB sensors for chemistry and it only works on 32-bit machines. So highly consider this. But x64 drivers are more "stable" in a way since they must be signed (it's a pro and con). If it's about applications, all x86 apps will work on .Vista 64-bit (with SysWOW64).

But you can't upgrade from WinXP x86 to .Vista x64 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930891) so I guess you'll have to make a clean install.

 

64 bit will work without problem. Unfortunatley you can only upgrade from Xp32 bit to Vista 32 Bit. So yiu will have to make a clean install of Vista 64.

PL

 

Other than nicer eye candy and the ability to hotswap, there is no need to put up with all the performance issues, backward compatibility glitches and bloat of Vista. In fact even the hotswap thing you can achieve in XP if you don't mind following hours of detailed DIY instructions for your AHCI, and the eye candy comes free at places like crystalxp.net.

Now Win7 on the other hand seems to be as lean and mean as XP (even though it is based on the Vista kernel and has been rumored to achieve its snappiness by manually starting a lot of services), so that should be an exciting upgrade if you can wait until Christmas.

Haven't seen much software that needs 64 bit at the moment (or even heard of it in the pipeline) and getting it just to have 10GB of RAM may be a waste (most apps have a memory address usage of 2GB anyway at the moment). You'll have more trouble finding 64 bit drivers than it's worth, IMHO.

 

So even now, in the SP1 and SP2 beta days, drivers are still an issue eh?

What about performance .. assuming you can get drivers to satisfactory levels (including nvidea 8800gtx drivers).. performance should be same or worse than XP, these days? (or are the 64 bit drivers still suck?)

hmm .. sounds like if I were ot go vista I shoudl go 32bit (since I can just upgrade to minimize the pain), but it still might be not worth it.

Dang it, I'm just getting sick of XP (I do cross patform dev, so I also run OSX and Kubuntu and FreeBSD, and various hanhdeld OSes .. but sick of bloody XP

jeff

 

I say go for 64bit only if you have the 4gb of memory that 32 bit doesn't fully support. I have 64 bit on my laptop and I haven't encountered any serious issues but I do occasionally run into compatibility issues. Most of the time 32 bit apps work but try to get a 64 bit copy of any apps you use if you can.

 

I would strongly suggest a dual boot system. I did that with my recently received M860TU (received with XP pro: installed Windows 7 beta). There are lots of posts within these forums and on the web on how to do it. This way you get to try Vista with the "safety net" of XP.

 

Overall, I don't mind Vista64. It's not really better or worse, just different from XP. I have been able to turn off or fix most of the complaints that people have about it. You can boot into safe mode to install unsigned drivers. No problem. Turn off UAC as long as you're not an idiot and don't install trojans. That fixes that. I do have a few gripes though:

-Can't pick and choose which folders show hidden files. It's all or nothing, including the desktop.
-It doesn't remember the view that you last used in each folder. I prefer the details view in most, and thumbnails in some. It seems to default to icons all the time. And it doesn't remember which columns I do and don't care about in the detail view. Drives me bonkers.
-My fiance has Vista 32 Home Premium. We have a network printer, and if her laptop sleeps or shuts down, the printer shows up as offline. I have to delete and reinstall the printer to get it to work. In researching, nobody seems to have found a good solution, MSFT knows about the problem, it doesn't matter if you have 64 or 32 or Ultimate or Home or whatever. Some people get the problem, some don't. Works fine for me, never works for her. Again, drives me bonkers.
-My wifi lags like hell for 2-3 seconds every 60 seconds. It's a Vista thing, and I've tried ALL the solutions with no success. It makes FPS online gaming impossible without running CAT5 stretched all through the apartment. PITA. This is huge for me, and I'm about ready to go back to XP because of it. Does anybody know if Win 7 fixes this issue?

 

another vote to sticking to XP

some people go thru the hassle of "downgrading" (more like upgrading) to XP, yet you want to sink your self into trouble lol

 

I discounted a dual boot earlier, as it amounts to a 'clean install.'; but perhaps I must anyway (xp32 to vista64?) or need to (to get apps working may needs install anyway?), so maybe it is the way to go. meh.

I did pick up Partiiton Magic a couple years ago, maybe I can shrink my ntfs part and open up 50gb or something for Vista.

Maybe a good plan.

jeff

 

You can use unsigned drivers via safe mode eh? Thats good to know.

I always have all hidden folders shown; I prefer consistency... all or nothing, I want all

Weird about the printer; I set up a network printer box from d-link .. it has a bunch of usb ports, an ethernet port, and wifi to the main network. (Plug a voip phone into the ethernet, and printer into usb, and it does the 802.11 bridging.) That works great for me (my server farm is in the basement.)

Wifi lag.. is that common? Thats a deal breaker; if network performance is not solid, *PASS*. Unbelievable!

jeff

 

I have been ruinning vista64 for 14 months, and now win7 x64 and have had absolutely no problems with wifi or finding drivers. What drivers are you people having problems finding??

 

I do not understand why people complain abuot Vista. I been using it for 10 months and I did not have problems. What kind of problems are there with Vista?

PL

 

Too true. XP has always given me more problems locating modems/bluetooth connections than Vista.

 

If you've got the drivers, go 64-bit.

 

I agree vista 64 is a good OS. I have not had any problems with it at all, all of my drivers work fine, my printers work fine. Look around on the net there are plenty of ways to customize almost everything to do with vista, speed it up or change the looks.
Now all I want is a finished version of Win 7, I want the speed

 

No real problems now after SP1, it's actually one of MS's more stable systems. Just that there is little reason to have it unless you really like the visual effects.

If you look on the OS's thread, you'll see plenty of reasons why people run from Vista, mainly because it is fatter and slower compared to XP, pound for pound. Since we are on a laptop forum, leanness is actually quite a big consideration. Even the hardcore Vista fanboys have (for the most part) given up trying to say that Vista is faster than XP. The argument that you can tweak Vista to be faster, is also true for XP (and probably relatively more effective in the latter).

Other reasons include - continued backward compatibility issues, albeit mainly with the sort of apps and devices you normally keep in your attic, and also DRM, the copy protection code that many don't like because it serves Hollywood and overrides you, the user (and without it, you can't get 1080 ... legally. No problems on piratebay of course, which is why I think it is a load of nonsense to be boycotted ).