32-bit, 64-bit and licensing...

[Guest]

Heya everyone,

I've recently purchased Vista business, and ordered the 64-bit media from
microsoft -- i'm told it is in the mail...

I would like to try the 64-bit version for some very specific reasons (I
work in Visual Effects, and many of our tools require access to significant
amounts of RAM).

I not 100% certain that Vista 64-bit will work for me (drivers, software
compatibility, openGL, etc).

My question is with regards to the licensing... am I allowed to install the
64-bit version, try it, and if it doesn't meet my requirements, roll back to
the 32-bit version? If so, which activation procedure should I follow?

Thanks in advance,

Gene

 

[Dustin Harper]

Nope. 64 Bit must be a clean install, no upgrades. But, if you were to put
it on a second partition or hard drive, you can run it unactivated for up to
a year (30 days at first, there are ways to extend to a year) to see if it
meets your needs.

But, if you want to activate it, you can only run one. It's either 32Bit or
64Bit, not both. One license per install (32 or 64 Bit).

But, for trial, I'd recommend installing it on a second hard drive,
unactivated, and see if it meets your needs.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

The product key designated only for one license, which means you must choose
either 32 or 64 bit, but as Dustin notes you can run the 64-bit version on a
secondary drive or partition for 30 days.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

The situation is a little trickier then I hoped. The software I use is
licensed by MAC address (well, there IS a floating license option, but I
don't have that), so trying it on another machine is not going to work.

I suppose that the key to this experiment is not activating either version,
until i'm certain that whichever version I intend to go with, is activated
first.

It's a little disappointing considering that my choices are: suffer through
the growing pains of the 64-bit build, or get stuck with the 32-bit version,
and have to shell out more coin once these things stabilize.

Ironically, this is the same complication that made convert from Linux in
the first place -- 'cept on this end, this little experiment could
potentially cost me money.

Ah well, we'll see how this goes...

Thanks again for the feedback.

Gene

 

[Reggie Dunbar]

After upgrading from XP to Vista on PCs that sport decent specs -- I can't
recommend doing it to anything but a new computer that meets your needs.
Vista is slow to do some tasks. I'm sure my experience that improve once I
go multicore/dual processors...but that's down the road.

Side note: I *was* satisified with my Ubuntu Linux install on an old 1.3
Ghz/256 MB system I had collecting dust. It cruises and makes for an
excellent web browsing machine. I have yet to switch Office-created
documents back and forth with Open Office to see how that works.