Upgrading to Vista 64 Ultimate

[David B. Mathews]

I just got a new Dell XPS with the Q6850 processor and am under the
impression it is 64 bits but in Dells wisdom they install Vista Ultimate. I
guess I have to upgrade to it if I want it. My question is do I have to buy
the full Version, an update version and do I have to do a new install? What
would you all suggest for getting it. I thought I would at least wait until
SP1 becomes available by that time I will be more than ready to start fresh
as this version is more buggy than my Windows Me was or for that matter when
I beta tested Win95 way back when.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Dell installed the 32bit version as their is quite a bit more compatibility
generally than with the 64bit version. You would probably not see anything
by way of performance gain while running 32bit applications, and if your
memory usage never rises above 3gb, it would be better to stay with 32bit.

 

[philo]

I just got a new Dell XPS with the Q6850 processor and am under the
impression it is 64 bits but in Dells wisdom they install Vista Ultimate. I
guess I have to upgrade to it if I want it. My question is do I have to buy
the full Version, an update version and do I have to do a new install? What
would you all suggest for getting it. I thought I would at least wait until
SP1 becomes available by that time I will be more than ready to start fresh
as this version is more buggy than my Windows Me was or for that matter when
I beta tested Win95 way back when.

No, you cannot upgrade Vista_32 bit to Vista_64...you'd need to clean
install
(or dual boot...using a 2nd partition)
Unless you are sure you can get 64bit drivers for all your hardware...I'd
leave the machine as it is!

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

You need to backup your files first. Windows Vista 64 bit requires a clean
install.

 

[David B. Mathews]

Thanks for the replies. If down the road I decide on going 64 bit can I
just buy the update even though my current copy is from Dell?
=================

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Despite similar appearance, 64bit is a different platform and requires a
clean install, so there is no upgrade possible per se.

Unless you intend running a memory intensive 64bit application, there is
little or no point in going 64bit. Some use the argument that more can
opened if you have a 64bit OS accessing greater than the 4gb limit of a
32bit OS.

So try opening everything you have. Your screen and task bar will be
overloaded way before RAM is UNLESS you have some memory intensive (CAD/CAM)
application running, and the likelihood of being able to manage all of it,
and run everything simultaneously such that each application is maxxing out
memory is zero.

Stay with 32bit until the time comes where you absolutely need to run an
application requiring in excess of the 32bit limit. The application will be
64bit, because all 32bit applications have a 'max' of 2gb.