changing from existing vista business from 32 bit to 64 bit

[David]

Dear sir,

I have an existing vista business and i was wondering if i could change from
a 32 bit operating system to 64 bit. The reason for this is because i have 4
gb of ram and i use 32 bit, it would only use half of my ram. If it is not
possible please suggest another. I do not own a copy of vista business, as it
came with the laptop, so please suggest a way which i do not have to pay to
change it

Thank you.

 

[Charlie42]

Dear sir,

No need to be formal. ;-) This is a newsgroup where users help other users.

I have an existing vista business and i was wondering if i could
change from a 32 bit operating system to 64 bit.

There is no Vista 64-bit to 32-bit upgrade path, so you will have to perform
a clean install. It is more time consuming, since you have to reinstall any
third-party software as well, but it is not a problem as long as your
hardware can handle it. Check out at the manufacturers' web sites for 64-bit
drivers.

The reason for this is because i have 4 gb of ram and i use 32 bit,
it would only use half of my ram.

Do I understand you correctly, you have 4GB RAM installed on the machine?
Vista 32-bit can handle up to 4GB RAM, albeit some of it is reserved for hw
and only approx. 3,1-3,5 is used by the OS.

If it is not possible please suggest another. I do not own a copy of vista
business, as it came with the laptop, so please suggest a way which i do
not
have to pay to change it

Some OEM's do not supply installation media with their computers, instead
the hard drive has a recovery partition. It can only be used to restore the
OS you already have. You might request your OEM or the retailer, for a
64-bit installation disk, but do not get your hopes up to high.

I believe your cheapest alternative is to buy a retail Vista Business 64-bit
upgrade disk.

Charlie42

 

[David P.]

You could be opening yourself up to other issues. Do your
hardware/peripherals have 64-bit drivers?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an existing vista business and i was wondering if i could change from
a 32 bit operating system to 64 bit.

Yes, but...

1. You will probably have to buy a copy of 64-bit Vista.

2. You will have to do a clean installation, and can not upgrade over
the top of your existing installation.

3. You *may* not be able to get 64-bit drivers for all your hardware.
That's particularly relevant in your case, since you have a laptop.
Check with your vendor to be sure before you do anything else.

The reason for this is because i have 4
gb of ram and i use 32 bit, it would only use half of my ram.

That is *not* correct. You should be able to use around 3.1GB.

All 32-bit versions of Windows (not just XP) have a 4GB address space.
That's the theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.

But you can't use the entire 4GB of address space. Even though you
have a 4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM.
That's because some of that space is used by hardware and not
available to the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but is
usually around 3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. The rest of the RAM goes unused because there is no
address space to map it too.

If Vista is seeing only 2GB, either you are wrong that your computer
has 4GB or something else is wrong.

If it is not
possible please suggest another. I do not own a copy of vista business, as it
came with the laptop, so please suggest a way which i do not have to pay to
change it

Check with your vendor to be sure, but my guess is that there is no
way, and you will have to pay for it.

By the way, why do you want more than 2GB? It depends on what apps you
run, but most people will not see very much improvement by going above
2GB.