Hardware upgrade/Vista advice

[Norm]

I will be upgrading from Pentium 4 to Core 2 quad extreme with 64 bit
capability. I have 3 questions:
1 What do I need to do prior to the change so that Vista (ultimate) will
smoothly accept the hardware changes?

2 If I decide to go to 64 bit (installed clean on a new hard drive), will I
still be able to read my old hard drive?

3 Are there any reasons not to go with 64 bit? (I read the commonly asked
questions and did not get satisfaction)

 

[Dustin Harper]

1. Backup. That's about it. You have to do a clean install, so make sure you
have ALL your data off. I see you're using another hard drive, so nothing
needs to be done, really. You will need to reactivate over the phone,
though.

2. Yes, it will be read just fine. Both will use the NTFS file system.

3. Hardware and software compatibility. It may or may not be an issue for
you. It hasn't been any problem for me at all. But, some have legacy
hardware or software that they require to use that won't work with 64 Bit.

Hope this helps.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

1 What do I need to do prior to the change so that Vista (ultimate) will
smoothly accept the hardware changes?

Well, not much, the operating system should readily accept the processor
change, there is a likely possibility you might have to do a repair
install. Just make sure you backup any important data before making the
change, now would probably be a good time to take advantage of Vista
Ultimate's Complete PC Backup utility.

2 If I decide to go to 64 bit (installed clean on a new hard drive), will I
still be able to read my old hard drive?

Yes, if you setup the old drive as a slave you should be able to read the
old one, you might have to take ownerhip of files and folders before
accessing them though.

3 Are there any reasons not to go with 64 bit? (I read the commonly asked
questions and did not get satisfaction)
Stick with 32 bit Vista, mainly for compatibility reasons, such as device
drivers and the majority of most software you are likely to run will do just
fine with Vista 32 bit and 4 GBs of RAM. Vista 64-bit true power lies in its
ability to address large amounts of memory beyond 4 GBs, since the buck
really stops at 4 GBs for 32 Bit Vista. There have been performance test
that yes prove that Vista 64-bit performs good with 4 GBs or more RAM but
then again, there are trade offs such as compatibility which I previously
mentioned.

Some other nice features of Vista include all device drivers must be signed
before they can be installed on the system, Patch Guard which prevents the
OS kernel from be patched or altered by third party software. So, there are
some try security benefits there too.

Here is a great article read about 32 vs 64 bit Windows.
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/km...bit-vs-64-bit-which-one-is-right-for-you.aspx

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I will be upgrading from Pentium 4 to Core 2 quad extreme with 64 bit
capability. I have 3 questions:
1 What do I need to do prior to the change so that Vista (ultimate) will
smoothly accept the hardware changes?

Nothing.


2 If I decide to go to 64 bit (installed clean on a new hard drive), will I
still be able to read my old hard drive?

Yes.


3 Are there any reasons not to go with 64 bit? (I read the commonly asked
questions and did not get satisfaction)

Yes. There are two reasons:

1. You may have difficulty finding drivers for all your hardware.

2. You will almost certainly see almost no performance improvement.
Only if you run 64-bit applications will performance be significantly
better, and there are very few 64-applications available so far.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

I will be upgrading from Pentium 4 to Core 2 quad extreme with 64 bit
capability. I have 3 questions:
1 What do I need to do prior to the change so that Vista (ultimate) will
smoothly accept the hardware changes?

2 If I decide to go to 64 bit (installed clean on a new hard drive), will
I
still be able to read my old hard drive?

3 Are there any reasons not to go with 64 bit? (I read the commonly asked
questions and did not get satisfaction)

The transition will be better if you stay with 32bit Vista for now.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I will be upgrading from Pentium 4 to Core 2 quad extreme with 64 bit
capability. I have 3 questions:
1 What do I need to do prior to the change so that Vista (ultimate) will
smoothly accept the hardware changes?

2 If I decide to go to 64 bit (installed clean on a new hard drive), will
I
still be able to read my old hard drive?

3 Are there any reasons not to go with 64 bit? (I read the commonly asked
questions and did not get satisfaction)

Contrary to the other opinions I say if you have 4 GB of RAM and all your
hardware is supported with 64 bit drivers then by all means go for Vista
x64. You will have to do a clean install. You will see a big performance
increase when running multiple programs at the same time. With Vista x64 and
4 GB of RAM I can easily watch a recorded TV show, run Outlook 2007 checking
my email, and have Windows Server 2003 running in a virtual machine. The
exact same system bogs down trying to do that with Vista x86.

 

[Norm]

To follow up, I loaded the new hardware with my old hard drive at 32 bit.
Went very smoothly, just had to get the new key with minor hassle.

On the other hand, when I swapped parts on my XP computer, it was a real pain.