Vista 32 or 64 bit?

[jitpublisher]

I believe OEM software can only legally be installed on only one machine (can't build one comp. put the OS on that, then a year later take the OS off the old comp. and put it on your newer build), the trade off is that it is far less expensive than retail.

You may install OEM OS software as many times as Retail software OS.

I have been building with OEM sets for years....and in the case with all MS OEM OS's the -same- disks and keys for years.

If the person paying me WANTS Vista after I tell them it is crap then I install it anyhow.
Money is money....but the question was which is better Vista 32 or 64 bit and the correct answere from a person who knows and earn money for building high end systems is "neither"

Hmmm. Started out running Vista 32 Premium upgrade over XP Pro about a year ago.
Changed to Vista 64 bit about 4 months ago.
Use my system for office apps, Photoshop, Illustrator, Pagemaker, Publisher, Indesign, and Quark, watching movies, listening to music, moderate gaming, and as my handle would suggest, general publishing and prep for Just in Time print.
Would never even think of going back to the old XP.

 

[Scotteq]

Hmmm don't see anything on there about Vista but I do see an extension to 2010 for an XP line.

If you didn't like that link, here's more:

Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=vista&Filter=FilterNO

XP: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=Windows+XP+&Filter=FilterNO

 

[amdiesen]

Ok, I just want to get some thoughts from anybody who can help about this.

1). I need to know if I should get Vista 32 or Vista 64 bit?

...work related things. The work stuff is mostly just using office products like excel and word and whathaveyou.

2). Basically, I want to know if running 64 bit will cause me any trouble.
3). I have heard that there are a lot of issues with it.
4). I know the added ram will help me a lot with games but I am worried about compatibility as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ignore the following if you've ruled out XP and are satified that your work applications are satifactory on Vista **

Programmed office applications run ~40-50% slower on vista; actual experience w/VBA excel 2000, xp media w/2gb ram v. vista 32 w/4gb ram.

edit: xp media machine: smithfield 820, pcmark05 = 4639; vista 32 machine: T7300, pcmark05 = 5043

Vista is constantly accessing my HD, similar to a flashing yellow traffic light.

Businesses, (all that I have relationships with) maintain an XP platform. Certain required work applications, (again my relationships with fortune 500 companies) will not work on Vista machines.

Microsoft "rhetoric", has moved windows 7 from a 2011 release date to a 2009 release date. A reasonable decoder ring interpretation would be that the business community and MS have given up on Vista, a mature windows 7 will not be available until 2010 at the earliest (SP1 being the benchmark).
2011 reference (28Jan08) -->http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/14018

Depends on your constraints, are there must have work applications that require xp, how critical is speed in your office applications, how badly do you want DX10

GLuck

 

[Guest]

If you didn't like that link, here's more:

Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=vista&Filter=FilterNO

XP: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=Windows+XP+&Filter=FilterNO

Nice

 

[Carbonite]

Wow, all great replies. Thanks a ton everyone.

First I would like to say, I wont be buying XP. I have run that route of discussion and have gone to the local college to get an old proffesors oppinion.

He says with SP1 the performance of Vista is comparable to XP. Vista is only slightly behind in speed as it pertains to gamers. He says I will likely not notice it and as the hotfixes come out he says it will only get better.

He did say, if my question was should I upgrade to Vista from XP on my current machine he would say just to stick with XP, but since I am building a computer there is really no reason at this point not to get Vista.

He knows his stuff for sure as he is the head of the CIS department, so I trust his thoughts on the matter. I guess I could have asked him about the 32/64 bit stuff but at the time I hadnt come to the question of which version.

On top of all that, I fully intend to take advantage of DX10. That right there is the end of discussion on XP.



Now, as it pertains to my question, if I do go 64 bit, I will definately have 8GB of ram installed. DDR2 ram is so ungodly cheap right now because DDR3 is being forced in.

In the end, I take from what everyone is saying is that the drivers are what can cause me trouble. I will just have to be carefull to get things with 64bit drivers. (I dont buy to much old stuff rofl.)

So I will go with 64 bit as I mentioned in my first reply.


For those that care this is whats in my cart (2500 dollar budget):

Cosmos S Case
1000 Watt Single rail silverstone modular PSU
Evga 780i Motherboard
45nm Core 2 Duo 3ghz (People are clocking this thing at 4ghz on air and for 200 bucks how could I go wrong)
2 sets of: 4GB (2x2GB sticks) (Total of 8GBs)
9800GTX (Adding two more in the comming months)
750GB Seagate HD (Consulted the HD charts for this as I needed speed and a lot of space)
24 Inch Samsung 1920x1200 res Monitor
Vista 64bit OEM

Of course I have all the other stuff needed but they really dont need to be listed.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[L1qu1d]

Checkmate

Winner is Scotteq

Nub is ZOldDude

Game Over! Play again?

 

[ThrillerGTX]

I installed Vista 64 Ultimate when i bought 8gb of rams and let me tell ya i've never enjoyed an OS that much, really stable. As far as driver issues, i've had none so far.

 

[ZOldDude]

Please stop talking out of your a$$. I don't care if you do or don't like it. But this is just outright lying.

From the source: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

I was quoting what MS it's self had said in March of 2007 and what has been reported on CNET.

MS has been known to change it's mind often enough and in the past month has decided to keep saleing XP for another two years. It may well decide to keep makeing program update/fix/ for Vista as well.

Just becuase I quote an outdated MS news item or quote from an outside MS collection of current facts like CNET is not the same a "lying".

 

[L1qu1d]

Guys guess what, Doom 3 is coming out....Sorry if my information is about 4 years old, its not the same as lying LOL!

Common dude, you could've came up with something better. I never saw/heard of Microsoft announcing Vista as not being supported, thats like Stopping parts for the 2008 Corrolla and making parts for the 2002, it makes no sense!

 

[vertigo_2000]

lol... you knowingly used a quote that was over 1 yr old and are now trying to backpeddle.

Nice try.

You've been exposed.

 

[grieve]

Well in my world what you should get is XP 32 bit.
In my world I want Windows to run everything without driver issues,run everything faster,and use RAM correctly.
quotemsg]

The OP clearly stated Vista 32 or 64...

I have Vista Ultimate64 with 4 gigs of ram and it runs like a dream. I have only come across one thing that didn’t work "command and conquer Generals" but it is because it is an old game and doesnt run on Vista...

If you really have concerns then dual boot XP, but i can guarantee you in 3 months you’ll dump XP.


***ZOldDude perhaps you should be running Vista to learn the new OS. Perhaps if you got some experience with it you would eliminate “user error” and find that although it takes a little more resources and is loaded with bloat-ware it is in fact a good OS. Also drivers are not an issue if you are using new parts.

I don’t have any issues with Vista now, I did during the learning curve but once you overcome your initial unknowns this OS is actually pretty good.

 

[dagger]

Vista uses significantly more system resource and produce greater overhead, compared to XP or eariler Windows OS. There is no significant difference between the amount of overhead between Vista 32 bit and Vista 64bit. There is nothing more to say. 😛

 

[doomsdaydave11]

And no they do not definitely plan a commercial release of windows 7 in 2009. That is considered to be the likely first time frame for a beta or RC release.

Dang, I wanted to skip Vista all-together. Thats okay though, I'm sure eventually Microsoft will eventually fix a lot of the crap in Vista. They have to know that something is keeping gamers from buying Vista. If they don't I see a Linux takeover coming soon....

Do you still have XP? If you do, stick with that bro. In my opinion there's nothing really in Vista that you need. 2008 is a really bad time to buy Vista, because everyone's asking themselves that question "Hmmm... 32 bit will be good for now.... but 64 bit will be good for the future..."

Stick with XP for now. Eventually you'll probably want to upgrade to Vista 64, but now is not the time in my own humble opinion.

 

[doomsdaydave11]

For the OP: If you want to run a lot of video and a lot of RAM, you may find yourself in a position of *needing* a 64 bit operating system. The reason for this is not a physical one, but rather a matter of of how much address space is available for the operating system to assign to the various devices. In 32 bit consumer versions of Windows, this limit is 4GB. Once that is reached, there are no more addresses for the OS to use to communicate to your devices, so it cannot and will not be able to use whatever didn't get in the 4GB bucket. This is handled semi-elegantly by prioritizing - CMOS, communications, video... RAM last.

Yep, I have found the need for a 64-bit OS. Of course I don't want to pay for it, so I use 64-bit Linux Ubuntu Studio. If you're converting 3 or 4 DVD's at a time, and then doing some massive video editing after that, you find the need for the extra RAM. 64-bit also runs 64-bit applications better/faster then 32-bit runs 32-bit applications... (correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[bobbknight]

As per the tests here on Toms.

Get Vista 64 bit with 8GB of ram, it will be as good a XP Pro 32 bit with 2GB of ram.

 

[dagger]

As per the tests here on Toms.

Get Vista 64 bit with 8GB of ram, it will be as good a XP Pro 32 bit with 2GB of ram.

That is such a joke. Crysis alone uses more than 2GB of ram. If you're a gamer, 2GB of ram is not enough on any OS. It'll use a lot of page file, and the machine will run like a turtle.

8gig ram on XP would be faster than 8gig on Vista though. Although with DX10, Microsoft is intentionally closing the door on XP. Its days are numbered.

 

[crash27]

zolddude

vista is slower than xp
xp is slower than 98
98 is slower than 95

so by your logic you should use win95 right? good luck running crysis on that !

i run vista 32 crysis with 2 gigs of ram on high no problems.
6400x2 and 8800 gtx

 

[NightlySputnik]

Well in my world what you should get is XP 32 bit.
In my world I want Windows to run everything without driver issues,run everything faster,and use RAM correctly.

On the RAM issue alone Vista takes up almost a full GB if you have 4GB installed,removing any benefit in available ram over XP 32 at that point if all other issues were equal....which they are not and never can be.

With XP OEM Home and 2GB of RAM I can run all four (4) of my security programs (one blocks 1,163,367,835 IP #'s),six (6) torrents,play Frontlines:Fuel of War and use no more than 59% of the RAM....or just a bit over what Vista (32-64) uses to load it's self up while viewing Asus Probe II for memory usage.
Vista can never with 4GB of RAM be equal to XP with only 2GB if you wanted to benchmark it for program speed or correct RAM usage.

Those with top end computters may not -notice- the slowdown in preformance but it is a well documented fact.

If your -need- to have truckloads of RAM (you do heavy GFX/Video for work) then Server 2003 32 bit with a patch handles like 124-127GB of ram without any issues at all (divers or RAM useage).

If you removed all that "evil" DRM crap in Vista that slows everything it does down ,and had it not load all the OS into RAM it can if it finds it (stuff you almost never use) ,and reamove any driver issues....then it would be as FAST as XP as well as no diriver issues.....but then it would be called XP.

In your world... we'd still be using W95 that everybody would finally have accepted after a long 13 years debate.

In my world, with 6GB of memory and a lot of stuff working in the background, I use less then 1.3GB of memory at start-up. It was 800MB when I had 2GB of memory. At hte time, I used to start Photoshop Element that easily use close to 2GB memory, and I didn't even reached 100% memory cap. You know why... because Vista is clever enougnh to unload unneccessary stuff from memory.

To resume, never had a crash with Vista... and IT'S DAMN FAST!

So, stop whining... and come see me in two years whn new game won't even work on XP...

 

[L1qu1d]

Amen. K I think that just answered everything. Close the TOPIC LMAO!

 

[russki]

Re: ZOldDude - old people always resist change. "You d#$n kids, get off my lawn!"

There is no reason for a consumer to not get Vista now that most compatibility issues have been worked out, and there is no reason to get 32bit now that most compatibility issues have been worked out UNLESS you have a specific pirce of software that you know is nto compatible with the 64bit Vista. But if you're a consumer, that is highly unlikely. As a side note, virtually all application incompatibilities are caused by poor poor poor programming on the application side, but if you're a corporation with significant investment in the software you don't really care except to go back to the vendor and try to get them to do it right (not gonna happen)... But for consumers, it's virtually a non-issue.

Now, as another side note, if anybod brings up DRM as a reason not to get Vista for some reason, you can immediately discredit them for lack of knowledge and / or general understanding of what the eff they are talking about.

 

[hermanator]

ALL THE GURU'S CAN SAY WHAT THEY WANT!!!!!!!!!!!
I am here to speack as a freeeeeeeeeeeeeee American.
Firstly,
Everything the corporations are making feeds them. Who feeds them? Us? NOT!!!!!!! Other corporations. Let's make it simple. Big business has to compete with big business. So, everything they make is to make them faster.
When is the last time you had to batch your bills to a bank?
O.K.
32 bit doesn't make diddleley to me! 64 bit doesn't make diddleley to me!
But, when I loose all my 32 bit software from microsoft's creative addictions to realArcade's little fun time addictions.........Well, THAT'S HIGHWAY ROBBERY!!!!
I can't use the 32 bit issues of whatever on a 64 bit operating system.........I can't use the 64 bit issues of whatever on a 32 bit operating system.
Now, that's not freeeeeeeeeeee AMERICA..........That's just plain.....
Well...............
You know.........
Buy it or else.
The else?????? NO SUPPORT!
So, if you ask me............it's this simple.
Get two computers and keep your thousands upon thousands of dollars in old software and all the folders and files you''ve created over the past 10 years and put it in a hard drive tower with a 32 bit O.S.
Then if feeling you need to be slaved or forced to have 64 bit. Buy a second computer with it.
Vista is 64..............ONLY..........I think. I'm researching that now!
Either way you go.........Replacing the old computer with a 32 bit or going for the 64.............THEY WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.
If you're a GURU or money, money, money.........Partition.

 

[L1qu1d]

good job, 1 year late.

Nice effort though.

Notice how its from april 2008?