Installing Vista X64 ater Vista x86 intall - any caveats?

[wgd]

I installed Vista Beta 2 (32bit) on a test system. It has worked well and
I am enjoying using it, learning about the new features, etc.

One feature I especially liked was when the Nvidia video driver (88.61)
for my Geforce 7600GS apparently stopped responding (hung) and VISTA
RESTARTED THE DRIVER WITHOUT REQUIRING A REBOOT. Now how cool is that?

I also downloaded the X64 Beta 2, just in case. A question on the Vista
general forum got me thinking. Maybe I should check out the X64 version
too. Just to see how well it runs on my test system hardware (Pentium D
805, P945G Express chipset motherboard, 1 GB DDR2 667, etc.)

32bit Vista Beta 2 is installed on a 160 GB SATA2 hard drive which is
partitioned into two equal sized partitions. 32Bit Vista is currently
installed on the first partition. The second partition is formatted, but
empty.

If I stick in the Vista Beta 2 X64 DVD and install to the second partition
should that work OK? The X64 install would add a boot loader the same as
if XP was on the first partition? Then I could select either Vista Beta 2
32bit or 64bit at startup.

It seems to me like it should work fine, but maybe I'm missing something.
Any caveats that you're aware of?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Go ahead. You will get a boot options screen with two entries for Microsoft
Windows. Download VistaBoot Pro for a handy tool for renaming the entries
to "Vista x86" and "Vista x64." I don't see why it won't work just fine.

 

[wgd]

Go ahead. You will get a boot options screen with two entries for Microsoft
Windows. Download VistaBoot Pro for a handy tool for renaming the entries
to "Vista x86" and "Vista x64." I don't see why it won't work just fine.

Yeah, I went ahead and did it and it worked fine. Used VistaBoot Pro to
rename the boot entries appropriately. So now I have a dual boot test
system with Vista Beta 2 x86 and x64. So far the 64-bit version looks
promising. It seems to run a little faster than the 32-bit version in some
areas (for example IE7 and web browsing). But I've had some problems
already.

The installation of drivers for my onboard sound (Realtek ALC 882 HD
codec) seemed to ran successfully, but no sound. I used the same Realtek
Vista beta driver package that worked under 32-bit Vista (package includes
support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Vista B2).

Plus the install of my favorite 32-bit newsreader (MicroPlanet Gravity)
failed because I think it uses a 16-bit installer. Also, I can't use the
XP 32-bit drivers to get my HP Laserjet 1012 printer working. HP has no
64-bit Vista drivers for this printer and probably never will.

I'll take a look at 64-bit Vista for a while, but the 32-bit version is
much better from a practical point of view. Because it's possible to get
most things working and have a very usable system.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

A new driver showed up in my WU for Vista x86 yesterday and I now have sound
for the first time in this build (5472). No driver is showing for me in WU
for x64. AC97 drivers have been a headache so far.