32-bit Vista? 64-bit Vista?

Most notebook vendors when advertising the version of Vista don't specify which type they offer. I can only assume then that Basic, Premium, Enterprise and Ultimate are actually the 4 variants of 32-bit Vista. Is that correct?

 

that is correct. you'd have to call them and specify 64-bit vista if you want it i think.

 

Almost, for all versions with the exception of Vista basic (witch only exists in a 32 bit version as far as i know) there are 32 bit and 64 bit versions of versions.
Then there are of course the oem-versions of all versions but i think you get it by now...

 

Nope... even Basic exists in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Only Starter Edition (which is not sold in the U.S. among other countries) does not have a 32-bit version.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx

But anyway, most vendors are pre-installing the 32-bit versions because it has better hardware driver support (and better support for legacy software too). Computer vendors can do what they want though. I heard something about HP preinstalling 64-bit Ultimate, if you select Ultimate on certain machines. So if you're getting Ultimate from HP, you'd better double-check. Otherwise it's generally 32-bit.

 

64-bit Vista is good if your notebook has 4GB and up of system RAM right? I read somewhere that having more than 2GB of RAM in a 32-bit OS is completely useless even if the notebook GPU uses memory sharing technology.

 

64 Bit can handle up to something like 188Gb of RAM...

 

i think 32bit will see up to 3.5gigs right?

 

Yup.......

 

Memory Limits explained:

32 bit system uses address like this in binary rage:

00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000 to
11111111.11111111.11111111.11111111 similar to internet ips. We're familiar with this format:

0.0.0.0 to 256.256.256.256...looks familiar, doesn't it? You get this by taking 2^8 power for each point.

total address would be 2^32 and to translate this to Gigs, just divide it by 1024 a few times bringing it from bites to GB:

2^32=4294967296 B
/1024=4194304 KB
/1024=4096 MB
/1024=4 GB

Thus you get the physical 32 bit limit of 4 gigs. There is no way around this, despite what you heard. Video memory and other installed memory will count against this, not virtual memory or separated memory like caches. that's why in XP you see slightly less that 4 gigs.

as for 64 bit:
physical limit: 2^64 or 17179869184 Gigs
Microsoft opted to place a software limit that varies according to what you purchased...doesn't that suck?

Anyhow, now you know something that you probably will never use