32-bit Vista with a 64-bit AMD Gateway

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim Murray
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Tim Murray

My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?
 
Tim said:
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?
Click to expand...

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.

Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you
get the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words,
consumers are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a
64-bit operating system... Ben Myers
 
Jim said:
There is a 64-bit Vista, but not everything on it works properly and
some things are missing that are in the 32-bit version. The
rumor, gossip, & hearsay I find on the Wild & Wooly estimates that the
64-bit should be the preferred version for ordinary users by 2015.

Given Micro$loth's usual habit of having all upgrades available on
schedule, that may be optimistic.

Cheers!

jim b.
Click to expand...

True. But AFAIK (and I am never one to be confused by the facts
either), 64-bit Vista is not available in any Home version, only the
Pro, Ultimate, and Super Ultimate Extreme-with-a-Side-of-Sushi versions.

Leave it to Microsoft to confuse us AND itself with this proliferation
of Vista versions. Or was that Vista virgins? Now that would be a
great marketing ploy, but it would appeal mostly to menfolk... Ben Myers
 
Ben Myers said:
Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.

Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you get
the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words, consumers
are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a 64-bit operating
system... Ben Myers
Click to expand...

Dell has been shipping a Vista-64 Home Premium for a few months now. Both
my wifes Inspiron 518 and my sons Studio One 19 came with Vista 64 bit.
Base machines seem to be shipped with 32 bit Vista Home Basic, the mid-level
and top line models get 64 bit Home Premium.

Carl
 
Ben Myers said:
Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.

Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you get
the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words, consumers
are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a 64-bit operating
system... Ben Myers
Click to expand...

64-bit Vista is available in all flavors.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/

Most PC's/notebooks I've seen or considered were loaded with 32-bit Home
Premium. I don't think it's a matter of MS thinking that home users are too
dumb for 64-bit; I think it's more of a matter of home users not necessarily
needing 64-bit for what they do. Since most home users do more gaming than
anything else (I know, that's a generalization), and there aren't too many
64-bit games out there, and 64-bit Vista doesn't seem to run 32-bit programs
all that well, MS and the manufacturers just put a 32-bit version on their
most popular market machines. 32-bit is cheaper, too.

That's just my opinion, I may be wrong.
SC Tom
 
SC said:
64-bit Vista is available in all flavors.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/

Most PC's/notebooks I've seen or considered were loaded with 32-bit Home
Premium. I don't think it's a matter of MS thinking that home users are too
dumb for 64-bit; I think it's more of a matter of home users not necessarily
needing 64-bit for what they do. Since most home users do more gaming than
anything else (I know, that's a generalization), and there aren't too many
64-bit games out there, and 64-bit Vista doesn't seem to run 32-bit programs
all that well, MS and the manufacturers just put a 32-bit version on their
most popular market machines. 32-bit is cheaper, too.

That's just my opinion, I may be wrong.
SC Tom
Click to expand...
32bit programs run fine on 64bit vista, sometimes they even run faster.
Gaming and 64bit work really well as it lets you use more than 2gb of
ram properly. They put 32bit on machines because mostly they only
install 1-3GB of ram. I've been running 64bit vista and XP since they
came out and have had no problems whatsoever. It's true that there anrmt
many games natively supporting 64bit but all the games I have which are
most of the latest released run flawlessly. I woulnd't go back to 32bit
for anything as it's faster and has support for loads of memory.

Hope this helps
 
R. C. White said:
Hi, Tim.

No need to wonder about whether Vista Home Premium - or any other
version - is available in 64-bit. ALL versions of Vista are available in
both 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Just go to the official site to get all
the details:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/home-basic.aspx

To compare 32-bit and 64-bit, just type "64 bit" into the search box.

Remember that Vista has been on the market for nearly 3 years now. When
it arrived in 2006, 32-bit was still the dominant platform, so most new
computers - even 64-bit machines - came with 32-bit Vista pre-installed.
At that time, many manufacturers of printers and other peripherals had not
written 64-bit drivers for their hardware, because they did not yet see a
market for those drivers. And many software developers had not yet
produced versions of their software that would run in a 64-bit operating
system.

A lot has happened in the computer world in the last 3 years. Now, it's
hard to find a new computer with a 32-bit CPU. And 64-bit drivers are not
scarce anymore. But my perception is that many - and perhaps most -
64-bit computers still come with 32-bit Vista pre-installed.

The good news is that a new buyer of 32-bit Vista can get the 64-bit
version from Microsoft or from the computer OEM for a very low cost. I
haven't needed it so I haven't checked it out, but I'm sure the answer is
at that URL above. Of course, since it's a Gateway, it probably would be
best to check the Gateway website first.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100
Click to expand...
To add a bit to this explanation...
Before considering a move from 32 bit to 64 bit Vista, especially on a
laptop, go to the laptop manufacturer's web site and *make sure* there are
64 bit drivers for every piece of hardware in the computer. I suspect that
many laptops early in the Vista era did not have 64 bit driver support,
another reason for shipping the 64 bit hardware with a 32 bit OS.
 
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