Dumb down - 64 bit to 32 bit

[Ali Mony]

Is it posssible to install 32 bit Vista over 64 bit? There are so many
drivers that I can't get with 64 bit, especially soundcards. After a year I
am ready to throw in the towel and go to 32 bit. Thanks.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

You will have to do a clean install.. boot from the 32bit DVD, delete and
recreate the partition(s).. save important stuff first..

 

[Tim Slattery]

Is it posssible to install 32 bit Vista over 64 bit? There are so many
drivers that I can't get with 64 bit, especially soundcards. After a year I
am ready to throw in the towel and go to 32 bit. Thanks.

No. You can't do an upgrade from 32 to 64, or from 64 to 32. You have
to install the new OS from scratch.

 

[cvp]

If true that would be unusual. Care to tell us which drivers are 32-bit
only? Which soundcards?

 

[Ali Mony]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I may do that at some point (reformat) and
reinstall.

The drivers I care about are M-Audio Audiophile 192 soundcard. Not available
even in beta. I have a souncard that I haven't been able to use for a year
and am using a cheapo that is built in the motherboard.

I have Vista Ultimate 32 bit on another computer and am using their USB
drivers (just now in beta) with an M-Audio Mobile-Pre soundcard. Also, for
music, is Adobe Audition 3 that's coming out next month. But it will only be
available in Vista 32 bit (per their website).

I love Vista but to be honest, in using Vista Ultimate 64 bit and 32 bit on
different computers, I can't tell the difference. Except for driver
availability.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Vista 64bit comes into its own running 64bit applications. For some reason,
the general belief is that it will be much faster, even when only running
32bit apps that have a 2gb limit anyway, many of which never get close to
using that much.

64bit hardware exists because it is the way forward, and can run 32 and
64bit stuff, but that does not necessarily mean that one should run
Vista/XP64 just for the sake of it.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

its really for a specific segment of the market that understands the
capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of using it, the biggest
advantage of all has to be the support for a larger memory address space
that allows you to do more number crunching with scientific, financial and
other engineering applications that use a lot of memory. Hopefully in the
future, more mainstream applications will support the platform and harness
its capabilities, but with the majority of systems coming with 1 to 2 GBs of
memory, and 64 bit really addressing larger amounts up to 128 GBs, you won't
see a lot of apps for now.

 

[cvp]

So basically there's no Vista support at all at the moment, with one
beta now and one later. It's not surprising that the betas would start
off as 32-bit only.