Vista 64bit OS

When upgrading to a 64bit OS is it possible to do an upgrade, or does it need to be a fresh install?

That's it, just a quick and hopefully easy question.

Thanks!

 

It needs a fresh install

 

It's always better to do a full install. I don't know that question, but why did you get 64 bit? I've heard it gives people a world of pain with driver support and many programs do not support it. The only real benefit I've heard that 64 bit brings to the table is photoshop filtering.

 

Not exactly true....driver support depends on what hardware you have....generally latest hardware support x64......I personally felt x64 to be a bit more responsive than x32

Btw u need a fresh install !!

 

Well when I have extra time I love to mess with my computer and try differnet things. I have Vista 32 business now. Just picked up Vista Ulitmate 64. Thought it'd be something fun to do and play with. See if I can get it all set up and working nice.

If not I can always go back to 32 bit easy enough.
Really it's just a cure to my boredom~

 

going to upgrade mine to 64bit next week. not really looking forward to reinstalling all the drivers but it's always fun to start off on a clean slate.

 

So what is you guys' reasoning for 64 bit over 32?
I got both 32 and 64 free through my university, and cant make up my mind which one I want to install, or if there is any difference.

I think I read somewhere on a website that MS made the kernel of Vista 64-bit more secure than anything they've ever produced in the past and that no software can write to it or something like that. If so, that definitely pushes me in favor of Vista 64.

 

I just have heard that it's faster for gaming and other high end graphics use.

Also it can use all 4gigs of Ram I plan on getting.

And again, something to do!

 

My inner nerd agrees that installing a new OS is fun, but I would strongly advise AGAINST an upgrade. While upgrades are possible, they are unreliable at best and they often don't clean up after themselves. In addition, I don't think that its possible to upgrade from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS. That would involve changes to the kernel... It must be a clean install. Good luck hunting for drivers.

 

vista 64 is awesome. i have a dv2500 and as soon as i did my first boot vista found 43 updates. found everything from my webcam down to the wireless remote that pops out the side of the laptop. i run 64 bit cad and 3d studio max and they work great.

 

Its not. There is a small performance hit instead (not significant), since games are still 32-bit applications, and will run in 32-bit translation mode.

It will provide benefit only if the graphics software you use is already re-written to 64-bit mode (truly, most high-end packages already are). For 32-bit application it will be no benefit.

 

Almost correct.
The "32-bit translation mode" doesn't actually slow down the game itself. The game is run as-is, no translation or emulation there.
There is a thin emulation layer around the Windows services that the game might use (DirectX, for example), and that does take a very slight performance hit. On the other hand, the Windows services in question may themselves be faster in 64-bit Windows, so it might even out, or overall 64-bit might still be faster. In any case, we're talking about +/- 2% performance or so, at most.

 

well i've got a 64bit processor so I might as well take advantage of it

 

Yeah I plan to do teh same

 

Dude, I am not drawing diagrams on air here. I had both Vista x32 and x64 running on my Athlon X64 4600+ with 2Gb RAM for a month, when I had to decide myself what version to keep. And I've never seen a numerically proven boost (I am not wishful thinking like "well, it just *feels* faster", if there is no numbers/time measurements to measure, its not faster).
I've never seen x64 performing faster in any game I've used. It always was several frames per second less. You can dualboot to x32 for a change of pace and see it yourself...

Point is - getting x64 for any kind of measurable "performance boost" is pretty much useless. Unless you will use some software that is *specifically* tailored to get advantage of x64 architecture, you will get no boost - you will get an OS revision that takes 1.5 times more disk space, uses more memory and also still have lot of unresolved glitches with x64 drivers here and there. Unless you need to use more then 3Gb of RAM this is pretty much pointless endeavor. Well, of course, maybe having x64 make some people feel better

 

Well I did it last night, upgrades to Vista Ultimate 64bit OS.
Went very smooth.
I was able to use the Asus drivers that came with notebook for everything (except Fingerprint scanner).
Windows update took care of all the rest.
I haven't noticed any increace in performance, seems exactly the same, but i'm still only running 2 gigs of ram.
Hopefully that will increace soon.
One difference is that under C: drive and Programs there's to folders now, one for 64 bit software and one for x86.

Anyways, just thought I'd share~

 

Yeah, there's really no performance difference. The advantages are 4GB RAM and some other security features in the kernel. I'm running 64bit, and I don't really have any problems with it. 64bit is however the future, so getting familiar with it is worth it.