Windows Vista 32-bit vs 64-bit
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I just had a crappy experience at Best Buy. I choose to just buy a computer out of the box rather than mess with building one. I went to the store to see what was available for a new desktop and I could not find any 32-bit Vista machines by HP. I asked one of the sales people about it and he proceeded to let me know that I was silly for wanting 32-bit (he apparently has 2 64-bit systems at home) and that there are no compatibility issues to worry about and that they are awesome. Well I know for a fact that my employer will not allow 64-bit VPN software to be installed on a 64-bit system so that is a good reason not to go there. Will you please let me know what you think of the 2 systems and other than the obvious potential benefits over time is it work buying a 64-bit system now, today?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
I can't find 64-bit drivers for my printer (an older HP Deskjet), but other than that I haven't had many complaints. Although honestly, I run virtual machines on the Vista 64-bit host and tend to do all my work in the VMs.
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Ed.Poore wrote:
Seriously if the hardware has no issues then you shouldn't have a problem in that respect. Considering how well VMs run on mine have you contemplated installing say XP inside a VM for work and then installing the VPN stuff inside that? It does work (do it for Uni work).
Well now that you actually make that suggestions, I didnt gather this from the earlier posts, then that is a true solution. Does VM cost money or just the version of XP that I install?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
CleaKO wrote:
Does VM cost money
Depends on what host you go for. Virtual PC doesn't VM does. I've only got experience with VMWare but it's just released a feature called Unity where the VM windows appear on your main desktop (with a small icon to show they're virtualised.
CleaKO wrote:
version of XP that I install?
Legally you're meant to have a license for whatever OS you install inside it. You'd also get all the perks of VM development (just based on CG's experience back up stuff), such as snapshots etc.
I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder
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Yes, compatibilty with games is a big drawback that I noticed in my XP 64. And yes, loosing 4 gigs of RAM sucks, good thing he's got another 4! My system got only 2gigs so it wouldn't bother me having only for 4gigs :wtf:
Yes, 8 gigs is cool. His system is a dual core Q6600 with the ATI 3650 512 meg video card. 650 gig HD and 21 inch HP monitor. My work computer is a custom built system with quad core Q9450 and 4 gigs of system memory and nVidia GF 9800 GTX+ 512 meg. I have solved all my compatibility issues with Virtual PC. Since I have to test all my software on everything from 2000 to Vista 64, VP is a god send to me. Before Virtual machines, I had to maintain separate systems to test my software on. :)
Big Brother is watching!
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Yes, 8 gigs is cool. His system is a dual core Q6600 with the ATI 3650 512 meg video card. 650 gig HD and 21 inch HP monitor. My work computer is a custom built system with quad core Q9450 and 4 gigs of system memory and nVidia GF 9800 GTX+ 512 meg. I have solved all my compatibility issues with Virtual PC. Since I have to test all my software on everything from 2000 to Vista 64, VP is a god send to me. Before Virtual machines, I had to maintain separate systems to test my software on. :)
Big Brother is watching!
Thanks for the tip, I should definitely try it. I don't know why I haven't done it yet.
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I can't find 64-bit drivers for my printer (an older HP Deskjet), but other than that I haven't had many complaints. Although honestly, I run virtual machines on the Vista 64-bit host and tend to do all my work in the VMs.
Drivers can be an issue for older hardware. I have found that VMs are good for most all of my needs. But for gaming, it is all but worthless since it has only basic support of DirectX and limited video hardware. :sigh: It would be great if Microsoft would give direct support of the native video card in VPC. Then we could run most all apps including games in the VPC. ;)
Big Brother is watching!
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I just had a crappy experience at Best Buy. I choose to just buy a computer out of the box rather than mess with building one. I went to the store to see what was available for a new desktop and I could not find any 32-bit Vista machines by HP. I asked one of the sales people about it and he proceeded to let me know that I was silly for wanting 32-bit (he apparently has 2 64-bit systems at home) and that there are no compatibility issues to worry about and that they are awesome. Well I know for a fact that my employer will not allow 64-bit VPN software to be installed on a 64-bit system so that is a good reason not to go there. Will you please let me know what you think of the 2 systems and other than the obvious potential benefits over time is it work buying a 64-bit system now, today?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
Don't know about Vista, but XP64 did not give me any benefit. My tests on video processing on 32 vs 64 XP with vdub on dual code AMD made no difference. 64 bit apps are virtually do not exist. Unless something changed dramatically in last three years since I left ATI (other than company's name) video driver for 64 bit OS is _much_ worse than 32 bit one. Back in the days of 64 _server_ introduction, maintaining yet another major flavour of driver was clearly too much for the company (no blame assigned here, just too much that's it). What's left is ability to work with more than 4G of RAM. :doh:
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Do you play games and do all of the standard home user things like use Office, Quicken, photo editing etc.?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
Same here! I have used the 64 bit version since the beta of Vista and do not have any serious problems. My old scanner will not work, but hey, the installation disk will not install on anything about Windows 98 so no biggy ;) As for compatibility, there is one game my wife played that would not install on it (cheesy game, one of those $5 jobs) and an install of Quicken when Vista first came out was an issue but had a workaround. Not problem now though. I also used VPN to do work for a company and had not issues there either. Vista 64 has been rock solid for quite some time and 64 bit is where everything is moving even if rather slowly.
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Doughboy – R.I.P. Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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CleaKO wrote:
Does VM cost money
Depends on what host you go for. Virtual PC doesn't VM does. I've only got experience with VMWare but it's just released a feature called Unity where the VM windows appear on your main desktop (with a small icon to show they're virtualised.
CleaKO wrote:
version of XP that I install?
Legally you're meant to have a license for whatever OS you install inside it. You'd also get all the perks of VM development (just based on CG's experience back up stuff), such as snapshots etc.
I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder
I've been doing this for a couple of months now and it works great. I have 32-bit XP installed in a VM. My dev tools and VPN software run fine. I'm using VirtualBox because it's free and the performance has been better for me than VMWare. My machine has 4GB of RAM and a 256 MB video card and I have no problems running the VM.
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I just had a crappy experience at Best Buy. I choose to just buy a computer out of the box rather than mess with building one. I went to the store to see what was available for a new desktop and I could not find any 32-bit Vista machines by HP. I asked one of the sales people about it and he proceeded to let me know that I was silly for wanting 32-bit (he apparently has 2 64-bit systems at home) and that there are no compatibility issues to worry about and that they are awesome. Well I know for a fact that my employer will not allow 64-bit VPN software to be installed on a 64-bit system so that is a good reason not to go there. Will you please let me know what you think of the 2 systems and other than the obvious potential benefits over time is it work buying a 64-bit system now, today?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
VPN is the one thing I've really heard of problems with on 64-bit. Some older devices may have problems, but practically any major brand device built since Vista launch will have both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers. If you need it for work, you are probably stuck with 32-bit for support, though. (Put your old 32-bit XP image w/VPN in a VM?)
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I just had a crappy experience at Best Buy. I choose to just buy a computer out of the box rather than mess with building one. I went to the store to see what was available for a new desktop and I could not find any 32-bit Vista machines by HP. I asked one of the sales people about it and he proceeded to let me know that I was silly for wanting 32-bit (he apparently has 2 64-bit systems at home) and that there are no compatibility issues to worry about and that they are awesome. Well I know for a fact that my employer will not allow 64-bit VPN software to be installed on a 64-bit system so that is a good reason not to go there. Will you please let me know what you think of the 2 systems and other than the obvious potential benefits over time is it work buying a 64-bit system now, today?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
Been running it for about a year. It's OK. No real problems to speak of. But I don't really see any speed improvement. (4 gig RAM). In fact, I think VS2008 runs kind of slow - but I have only run this version ov VS on my 64 bit system so I have nothing to compare it to. Back when I was using 32 bit Vista I had VS2003. So who knows? Maybe VS2008 is just slow for everybody. There is not a lot of applications out there that actually take advantage of the 64 bit OS (at least, not that I use). My biggest gripe: there is no Adobe Flash for 64 bit Internet Explorer. So when using 64 bit IE, many web sites do not display properly (e.g. Yahoo mail). "No problem", says I, "I'll just use 32 bit IE" (it's included in the OS). I mean, there is no speed difference that I can detect between the 2 versions when surfing or downloading. So who cares? Well....Vista cares. I have found no way to change the default internet app from 64 bit to 32 bit IE. So yes, when I want to surf the web I can click my shortcut to 32 bit IE and there are no problems. But anytime Vista opens a default web browser it always opens 64 bit IE. This is not a major gripe. I'd say I curse this problem only maybe a once a week. I would not reccomend upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. From what I've read, you'll be better off just waiting a few months and going Windows 7. But if your only choice is Vista 64 - don't be afraid of it. It's just as good and just as bad as it's 32 bit cousin.
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CleaKO wrote:
Does VM cost money
Depends on what host you go for. Virtual PC doesn't VM does. I've only got experience with VMWare but it's just released a feature called Unity where the VM windows appear on your main desktop (with a small icon to show they're virtualised.
CleaKO wrote:
version of XP that I install?
Legally you're meant to have a license for whatever OS you install inside it. You'd also get all the perks of VM development (just based on CG's experience back up stuff), such as snapshots etc.
I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder
Ed.Poore wrote:
I've only got experience with VMWare but it's just released a feature called Unity where the VM windows appear on your main desktop (with a small icon to show they're virtualised.
Is this VMware for Macs you're talking about, or'd they finally port it to the PC version?
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Do you play games and do all of the standard home user things like use Office, Quicken, photo editing etc.?
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
I do all of those things on a 64 bit version and have not had any problems for more than a year. They are NOT issues.
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All I do is work (no games) and I've found that 64-bit Vista is like a totally different OS than 32-bit. I really love it. My only complaint is that there's not support for Visual Studio 6.0 and some of the older applications. There may be hacks for that and if so I hope someone shares them here. I gotta say though that in case of XP and Vista I love 64 over 32 and I can tell a big difference.
"there's not support for Visual Studio 6.0 and some of the older applications" That's not true. There is a compatibility mode that you can choose to work with in Vista. It allows you to run any application in it's native environment, all the way back to Windows 95. I haven't found ANYTHING that I cannot run yet in the Vista 64 bit environment.
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My work wont even allow a 64-bit VPN install/connection so I dont get the benefit of experiencing strange connection issues. I am torn here, if I decide to go with a 64-bit desktop then I will have to do all of my login from home work on the laptop. I guess I can then get a docking station and that would alleviate most of those issues :).
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)
Seems silly to not allow installation on 64 bit machine. I can't think of a single security issue that is created by moving to a broader word length. Does the idiot who made the rule have a reason? Can you challenge it?
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It really depeneds on what you want, on my home pc I like to develop\ play games and do almost everthing, When I upgraded my PC I thought "Hey, why dont I just use 64bit XP", the first few weeks were good, but then I found that some of those little apps you have just dont want to work, ok, well lets see if there is a 64bit version, on dear there is not. I then came to install itunes, itunes would not install on 64bit XP. I just came to furstrated and ended up putting on 32bit XP, problems solved, and virtual pc installed. Maybe vista is different, but to be honest I would not touch vista with a 10FT pole, to many bad exp.
"itunes would not install on 64bit XP. hmmm. Runs fine on my Vista x64.
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I noticed that 64-bit Video Card drivers sometimes get a delayed released compared to 32-bit ones. So if gaming is your deal, I wouldn't recommend it as you might not benefit from the most current video drivers. Aside from that, I haven't seen any issues with my XP 64-bit, Also didn't notice any real performance improvement.
"I noticed that 64-bit Video Card drivers sometimes get a delayed released compared to 32-bit ones. So if gaming is your deal, I wouldn't recommend it as you might not benefit from the most current video drivers." Maybe if you have a card from an obscure vendor. Both Nvidia and ATI release 64 bit drivers at the same time as the 32 bit driversw. NO exceptions.
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VPN is the one thing I've really heard of problems with on 64-bit. Some older devices may have problems, but practically any major brand device built since Vista launch will have both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers. If you need it for work, you are probably stuck with 32-bit for support, though. (Put your old 32-bit XP image w/VPN in a VM?)
kloder wrote:
VPN is the one thing I've really heard of problems with on 64-bit. Some older devices may have problems
Agreed. Some older firewalls may not support a 64 bit VPN client. Only becuase the vendor won't spend the money to write them, not because the OS in not capable. That's exactly why any decent IT department spends the extra dollars on the good brand name equipment, such as Sonicwall. They will go back and write new drivers for older hardware. Your Aguard or Truewall device (made up names) most certainly wont and you got what you paid for, not future support. Might have saved a few hundred up front, but now you have to spend the money all over again to make it work again.
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Been running it for about a year. It's OK. No real problems to speak of. But I don't really see any speed improvement. (4 gig RAM). In fact, I think VS2008 runs kind of slow - but I have only run this version ov VS on my 64 bit system so I have nothing to compare it to. Back when I was using 32 bit Vista I had VS2003. So who knows? Maybe VS2008 is just slow for everybody. There is not a lot of applications out there that actually take advantage of the 64 bit OS (at least, not that I use). My biggest gripe: there is no Adobe Flash for 64 bit Internet Explorer. So when using 64 bit IE, many web sites do not display properly (e.g. Yahoo mail). "No problem", says I, "I'll just use 32 bit IE" (it's included in the OS). I mean, there is no speed difference that I can detect between the 2 versions when surfing or downloading. So who cares? Well....Vista cares. I have found no way to change the default internet app from 64 bit to 32 bit IE. So yes, when I want to surf the web I can click my shortcut to 32 bit IE and there are no problems. But anytime Vista opens a default web browser it always opens 64 bit IE. This is not a major gripe. I'd say I curse this problem only maybe a once a week. I would not reccomend upgrading just for the sake of upgrading. From what I've read, you'll be better off just waiting a few months and going Windows 7. But if your only choice is Vista 64 - don't be afraid of it. It's just as good and just as bad as it's 32 bit cousin.
Figmo2 wrote:
My biggest gripe: there is no Adobe Flash for 64 bit Internet Explorer.
I have to agree. I am starting to think that Adobe is just being a jerk and refusing to play. They seem to be the only holdout that I can find. I am however seeing a lot of sites switching to Silverlight and you DO have x64 support there.
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Ed.Poore wrote:
I've only got experience with VMWare but it's just released a feature called Unity where the VM windows appear on your main desktop (with a small icon to show they're virtualised.
Is this VMware for Macs you're talking about, or'd they finally port it to the PC version?
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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Seems silly to not allow installation on 64 bit machine. I can't think of a single security issue that is created by moving to a broader word length. Does the idiot who made the rule have a reason? Can you challenge it?
I might just be a licensing issue, I have no idea honestly why or who made that decision.
CleaKO
"Now, a man would have opened both gates, driven through and not bothered to close either gate." - Marc Clifton (The Lounge)