Going from Windows Vista Premium 32- bit to 64-bit

[Robbie]

I am looking to purchase windows vista ultimate 64-bit system. But I am
puzzled as to how I would upgrade my 32-bit to 64-bit. A friend told me I
may download a driver, but I am would appreciate a second opinion to confirm
such thing. I use an intel pentium 4 laptop, and currently have vista
premium.

 

[Malke]

I am looking to purchase windows vista ultimate 64-bit system. But I am
puzzled as to how I would upgrade my 32-bit to 64-bit. A friend told me
I may download a driver, but I am would appreciate a second opinion to
confirm
such thing. I use an intel pentium 4 laptop, and currently have vista
premium.

You would need to do a clean install. Make sure you have drivers for Vista
64-bit and that your important programs will work with it.

Malke

 

[Robbie]

You would need to do a clean install. Make sure you have drivers for Vista
64-bit and that your important programs will work with it.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!

What do you mean by clean install? and how would I go about getting these
64-bit drivers? I appreciate your help by the way.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Malke is saying that you cannot perform an upgrade in place when migrating
from 32bit Windows to 64bit Windows.

The upgrade license you purchased allows you to install Vista x64 on a
computer with Vista x86 using the upgrade edition product key, but you will
have to boot with the 64bit dvd and perform a custom install to do it.
Since the Vista x64 setup program is itself a 64bit program, it cannot be
run from your current Vista 32bit desktop. That is why you have to boot the
system with the 64bit dvd.

What Malke is talking about as a clean install is formatting the target hard
drive or partition to get rid of the old operating system before installing
the new one. You can do that if you wish since you are installing a 64bit
version of Vista and are booting with the dvd. The custom install is all
that is necessary however. The term "custom install" is something you will
see during installation process so choose it when the option appears. The
"upgrade install" will be greyed out.

A custom install does not preserve your apps, files, and settings so use the
Windows Easy Transfer wizard to save your files and settings to intermediate
storage (a second hard drive or a dvd), install Vista x64, reinstall your
apps, and then run the WET wizard again to restore your files and settings.

You will need to download the 64bit drivers and utilities from the computer
or device manufacturers' website and save them to a cd before beginning all
of this. Most of the drivers may already be on the Vista x64 dvd, on the cd
that came with your computer or motherboard, or available from Windows
Update following installation of Vista x64, but plan for the worst case
scenario which would be that you would have to go find them all yourself.

 

[The Traveller]

I am looking to purchase windows vista ultimate 64-bit system. But I am
puzzled as to how I would upgrade my 32-bit to 64-bit. A friend told me I
may download a driver, but I am would appreciate a second opinion to confirm
such thing. I use an intel pentium 4 laptop, and currently have vista
premium.

If you are unclear about how to migrate from 32bit Vista to 64bit
Vista, then this might not be for you!

A 64bit system requires a clean installation where you essentially
dump the contents of your drive. Additionally, as others have
mentioned, you first need to make sure that you have 64-bit drivers
for your hardware and your software.

For example, my daughter replaced an aging P4 box with a new Quad core
machine running Windows Home Premium x64. All went well expect for one
omission... her MP3 player (Sansa) does not work. Per the OEM, they
still do not offer 64-bit drivers. So she had to keep her older P4
machine to update the music on her player.

Caveat Emptor!

______________________

The Traveller
Carlsbad, California

 

[Pavel A.]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:32:01 -0700, Robbie

For example, my daughter replaced an aging P4 box with a new Quad core
machine running Windows Home Premium x64. All went well expect for one
omission... her MP3 player (Sansa) does not work. Per the OEM, they
still do not offer 64-bit drivers. So she had to keep her older P4
machine to update the music on her player.

This is strange - Sansa appears to the PC either as USB flash disk
or a MTP device, so no custom driver is needed at all.

Regards,
--PA