Travel Technology - New computer: Any reasons not to get Vista 64 bit?

Looking into buying a new computer... will take the plunge in the next few days. I am finding that the more powerful units come with Vista 64bit. I remember reading about software compatibility issues when this was first offered. Have these problems been more or less worked out?

Or should I look for a machine with Vista 32 bit?

Software compatibility is less of a problem as 32 bit apps will run, DRIVER compatibility on some devices is more of an issue (Drivers can also include soft/virtual drivers for things like VPN).

If you plan to just use the on board devices that come with the system and just use mainly USB devices or newer PCI-Express devices then you are likely OK. Any legacy non-USB devices may not have 64 bit drivers in built and most vendors don't go back to old products to update them.

Any USB printer that needs all in one drivers (scanner/fax, etc) may also be a problem, standard USB printers that Vista has drivers for or most STANDARD non all in one HP printers are not a problem.

64bit can definitely cause problems with software compatability. Printers especially seem to be bad in this regard. If you're not getting more then 4G of ram, pretty much don't bother with 64bit operating systems. If you are, carefully examine everything you plan on plugging into or running on the system to make sure you're going to be able to get drivers. There's also some software that just doesn't like it (the vpn software my campus uses won't work on 64 bit vista).

There are a lot of driver issues with Vista-64.

Unless you are running applications that are specifically written for 64-bit, you will gain absolutely no advantage whatsoever. As others have noted, driver compatibility is a serious issue and there are also software compatibility problems.

FWIW, I've been running Vista64 on my Dell desktop at home for about the past 8 months now with no significant issues. Right now, the only 64-bit aware app I have is Photoshop Lightroom.

I've had no driver/software compatibility issues.

The lady at Circuit City ( not planning on buying there) said that a 64 bit Vista would be much faster computer than the 32bit. True?

I didn't think that the "bit" part influenced speed.

Fortunately 64bit Vista has been out long enough, I think the major compatibility issues are rectified. If you have all newer peripherals, I'm sure it'll be fine.

There may not be issues, per se, but there is also likely no reason to go to x64. Unless you have more than 4GB of RAM and you intend to run x64 apps there is absolutely zero value in getting the x64 version of the OS.

The lady at Circuit City ( not planning on buying there) said that a 64 bit Vista would be much faster computer than the 32bit. True?Blatantly false. Getting technical advice from the folks at Circuit City is like getting frequent flier advice from the Amish. They really don't know much about it.

Blatantly false. Getting technical advice from the folks at Circuit City is like getting frequent flier advice from the Amish. They really don't know much about it.

I haven't kept up at all on the details of 64bit Vista, but is it only the address space that's 64 bits, or is the data path wider than in the 32bit version? If the data path is wider as well, this could result in a speedup in certainly data-transfer-intensive applications. If it's just the address space then it is, indeed, pure hogwash.

Cheers.

Shortly after the release, I bought 64-bit Vista OEM pak.

My Nikon 5000 scanner will not work with this,
and Nikon has no plans to deliver a driver for 64-bit.

This is one kind of problem to watch out for.

The lady at Circuit City ( not planning on buying there) said that a 64 bit Vista would be much faster computer than the 32bit. True?

I didn't think that the "bit" part influenced speed.No -- for a 32-bit application, it will be the same or slower. Only for applications written specifically for a 64-bit OS is there any advantage and my bet is you won't be running any of those.

No one at Circuit City (or Best Buy or any big box store) is competent to advise about computers or other electronics. Period. Never listen to them -- they don't know what they're talking about. Home Theater does a regular piece every year or two in which a columnist goes to big box stores, pretends to know nothing, and asks for advice about HDTVs and receivers. The answers are hysterical, except for the fact that people who don't know better actually rely on them.

I haven't kept up at all on the details of 64bit Vista, but is it only the address space that's 64 bits, or is the data path wider than in the 32bit version? If the data path is wider as well, this could result in a speedup in certainly data-transfer-intensive applications. If it's just the address space then it is, indeed, pure hogwash.

Cheers.

The 64-bit version of an operating system is generally a bit slower than the identical 32-bit version of the operating system, mostly due to the fact that pointers inside the OS are larger fields and overall it can take more trips to memory to get the same amount of address data into the caches and registers. The order of difference is usually less than 1 - 3 percent, so you're not even going to notice it. So, the OS data sets are larger, and also the 64-bit version of the OS code has to have a set of interfaces for 32-bit apps and another set of interfaces for pure 64-bit apps, so the OS itself has a larger code base and takes more memory.

Applications that can use the additional address space can perform much better in a 64-bit environment than a 32-bit environment. If you run an application like that and can take advantage of the additional address space available to the application, you will certainly notice a positive difference. So, if you working with large images in Adobe Photoshop, you want the 64-bit version of it running on a 64-bit OS (not to mention, you will also want lots of physical memory.)

You don't get any more throughput in the hardware by going to a 64-bit OS. The hardware is what it is either way. What the OS vendor decides to do with the size of a basic integer inside the OS also affects OS performance.

There are other positive side effects of using a 64-bit OS, for example, you can have more memory in your system, if you can take advantage of it, even if you are only running 32-bit apps.

The performance disadvantage is usually so negligible, it's not even worth considering. The more important factor is the availability of device drivers.

-David

Software compatibility is less of a problem as 32 bit apps will run, DRIVER compatibility on some devices is more of an issue (Drivers can also include soft/virtual drivers for things like VPN).Great point on some pieces of software that require drivers. I think there's some Cisco VPN software that many companies use that still didn't have a 64-bit version of the software available quite a while after Vista shipped.

Antivirus and cd burning applications are other things that can require drivers. I'm not aware of any of those that don't have a 64-bit version available by now though.

Any USB printer that needs all in one drivers (scanner/fax, etc) may also be a problem, standard USB printers that Vista has drivers for or most STANDARD non all in one HP printers are not a problem.HP's page on which devices are compatible with Vista is here (http://h20219.www2.hp.com/services/cache/454897-0-0-225-121.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN).

If you're not getting more then 4G of ram, pretty much don't bother with 64bit operating systems.That's generally good advice, but you also need to think about how long you keep a PC. Many PC's shipping in stores today are configured with 6+GB of RAM. A year from now, that may be a lot more common. If you think you'll be doing a lot of video/photo editing on the machine, you'll want a lot of RAM.

Nothing a normal user has really needs > 4GB of RAM today, but that could change in another year as more and more 64-bit systems hit the shelf. Then again, the folks that predict stuff like this have been saying that same thing for 5+ years now :) You cannot upgrade from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS.

There are a lot of driver issues with Vista-64.Not really true anymore. You can check with your peripheral vendors. If they haven't released 64-bit drivers by now, they most likely never will. But if they have a Certified for Windows Vista logo, then that means they do have 64-bit drivers.

If printers are the biggest obstacle, you should take a look at how cheap consumer level printers are these days. They don't cost too much more than the ink itself :) That's probably not true for business-class hardware though.



http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/
I don't know how much info is there these days, but you can go there to see if your device is listed as 64-bit compatible or not.

The lady at Circuit City ( not planning on buying there) said that a 64 bit Vista would be much faster computer than the 32bit. True?

I didn't think that the "bit" part influenced speed.

No. You actually pay a small speed penalty for 64-bit. 64-bit pointers are bigger than 32-bit pointers, this makes 64-bit code a bit larger and that means more memory fetches and more cache misses.

The reason for 64-bit is for handling more memory. If you're going to put enough memory in it to make a difference (it will make only a small difference at 4gb, beyond that the difference will go up.) then the speedup from having more data in memory will be far more than the penalty for 64-bit in the first place.


*IF* I was happy with Vista & the 64-bit drivers I would take my board up to 8gb with Vista-64. I'm staying with XP and 4gb, though.

There may not be issues, per se, but there is also likely no reason to go to x64. Unless you have more than 4GB of RAM and you intend to run x64 apps there is absolutely zero value in getting the x64 version of the OS.

Error: remove the and.

If you want more than 4gb you need Vista-64 or XP-64 (good luck finding the drivers for the latter!) XP or Vista-32 gives you 4gb - the overhead of the board & video cards. (The latter can be substantial--they open apetures equal to their memory size.) The lowest I've ever seen available is 2.8 gb, I'm quite happy with my machine getting 3.25. Note that I do *NOT* have the latest and greatest video in there.

If you went nuts and put a pair of 1gb cards in there you could get an available memory of something around 1.7gb!

Why are all the pre-configured computers you buy at box stores only coming with 64 bit vista now? I can't find one that offers 32 bit.

Why are all the pre-configured computers you buy at box stores only coming with 64 bit vista now? I can't find one that offers 32 bit.

Because 64 bit is the future. As memory becomes cheaper and cheaper, and memory modules become denser (ie., 4gb memory sticks become cheaper), people are going to want to install more then 4gb of RAM. The PC vendors realize that if they sell 32 bit machines with 4gb of RAM installed, sooner or later the consumer is going to want to install more RAM and they won't be able to, causing a customer satisfaction issue. Imagine the average consumer buying a machine from Best Buy w/ 32 bit Vista and then shortly thereafter wants to increase the RAM only to discover that they can't; The shiny new laptop they just bought is already "maxed out". Instead of reinstalling a 64 bit OS, they may decide to instead buy another laptop, potentially from a different OEM.

In short, pre-installing 64 bit Vista is a wise decision by the OEM's to provide consumers with an OS that can realize the full potential of the hardware that they just purchased.

Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel
There are a lot of driver issues with Vista-64.

This has already been covered but I just want to drive the point home that this isn't accurate, as others have said. Yes, you MAY run across a driver compatibility issue, but those issues are few and far between these days. I have a desktop at home w/ 64 bit Vista Ultimate and a laptop with 64 bit Vista Enterprise. I have yet to encounter a single driver issue on either. I have a KVM switch, docking station for the laptop, lots of external hard drives, bluetooth headsets, make VoIP calls via IM, have a 3 year old old HP OfficeJet, tether my Verizon phone to my laptop to get on the Internet, use a smartcard to get on my corporate intranet remotely, sync my Zune to my desktop, etc etc etc. Point is that I have a lot of "stuff" and everything works just fine on both computers.

That doesn't mean that you won't run across an issue somewhere, and there have been a couple of specific compatibility issues already posted on this thread, but saying there are a "lot" of driver issues is a gross exaggeration.

There's one important point here that hasn't been mentioned and needs to be. 64 bit Vista requires signed drivers. Without going into the technical details, what that basically means is that the driver model for 64 bit Vista is more stringent than 32 bit. This means that you will find that your 3rd party drivers will be more stable (and secure), which means that your machine overall will be more stable (and secure).

If you want more than 4gb you need Vista-64

Here's something else that needs to be clarified that no one has mentioned so far. The issue isn't whether you want greater than 4gb of RAM; The issue is whether you want greater than or equal to 4gb of RAM. If you buy a machine with 4gb of RAM and 32 bit Vista, Vista will "see" roughly 3.1 gb of it. So if you buy 4gb and you actually want to use all 4gb, you need 64 bit. This is another reason that the vendors are pre-installing 64 bit Vista. They've been inundated with complaints from customers who have purchased 32 bit Vista w/ 4gb of RAM and feel cheated because they don't actually get to use all 4gb.

OK that was the long winded answer. Short answer: Buy 64 bit and be done with it.

....Short answer: Buy 64 bit and be done with it.

Clishe:

I have read your remarks .. and I agree. However, when the OP doesn't need more than 3.2 GB a 32 bit OS will be fine.

I have a laptop with 64 bit Vista running. It also came with a 32 bit Vista on a CD/DVD (in case I have problems with 64 bit).
-right now my task manager shows that I use 3 GB, so 3.2 GB can be low.
-No problems, however, one (remote-) printer is not working.
-Two programs are not running: Cloudmark Desktop and Zone Lab.

Shortly after the release, I bought 64-bit Vista OEM pak.

My Nikon 5000 scanner will not work with this,
and Nikon has no plans to deliver a driver for 64-bit.


Is there a solution?

Shortly after the release, I bought 64-bit Vista OEM pak.

My Nikon 5000 scanner will not work with this,
and Nikon has no plans to deliver a driver for 64-bit.

This is one kind of problem to watch out for.

Same problem with my 9080 Cannon scanner which is a high end scanner which Canon is still producing.

VueScan (http://www.hamrick.com/) works with Vista 64 bit, and works with most scanners, even those without Vista 64 drivers.

The downsides are (a) it's $39.95, and (b) it only works as a stand-alone application. You can't use another program's "Import from scanner..." option. In techie terms, it's not a TWAIN driver.

To the OP: How much memory were you thinking of getting? Also, have you ever upgraded the amount of memory in any of your previous computers?

Finally, what applications are you thinking of running? Is this a laptop or a desktop?

I put Vista64 on my home desktop, but run XP on most everything else except for my stupid XP x64 on my development workstation at work. Over the 18 months with Vista64, I've had a handful of issues with software not running on it, but for the most part they've been either optional (I've done without) or I've just used one of my other computers to run it. BTW, I have a Brother All-in-one and it works fine under Vista64. I've been looking into upgrading this desktop from 4GB to 8GB of ram, btw.

Oh, it bears mentioning that some of the the "next" CPUs from Intel, using the Nehalem microarchitecture, will use 3 memory channels. This, combined with the fact that 2GB memory modules now seem to be the pricing sweet spot, means that we'll start to see computers ship with 6GB of memory later in the year. These computers will be shipping with Vista64.

All this said, the easiest OS to use and support right now is 32-bit XP.

A 64-bit OS can more effectively use 4 GB of memory. A 32-bit OS usually configures the address space into 2 GB for system and 2 GB for user programs. Since system programs don't need 2 GB a 64-bit OS can allocate more than 2 2GB to user (application) programs.

A 64-bit OS can more effectively use 4 GB of memory. A 32-bit OS usually configures the address space into 2 GB for system and 2 GB for user programs. Since system programs don't need 2 GB a 64-bit OS can allocate more than 2 2GB to user (application) programs.

uhm .. where did you get that from?

user address space is separate from the kernel's address space, and the kernel only uses the exact amount of physical memory that it needs at any point in time. Each application running in any of the modern operating systems, gets its own unique address space to run in.

-David

A 64-bit OS can more effectively use 4 GB of memory. A 32-bit OS usually configures the address space into 2 GB for system and 2 GB for user programs. Since system programs don't need 2 GB a 64-bit OS can allocate more than 2 2GB to user (application) programs.

This isn't a 32-bit OS thing. It is a Windows thing. And that is the way the x86 versions of Windows behave, sortof. They'll only use up to 2GB for the kernel and each app can use more memory as needed, thanks to swapping. To actually address the 4GB of RAM appropriately with Windows you need x64. Anything running x86 with /PAE cheats and sortof uses the extra RAM, but not particularly efficiently.

To the OP: How much memory were you thinking of getting? Also, have you ever upgraded the amount of memory in any of your previous computers?

Finally, what applications are you thinking of running? Is this a laptop or a desktop?

I put Vista64 on my home desktop, but run XP on most everything else except for my stupid XP x64 on my development workstation at work. Over the 18 months with Vista64, I've had a handful of issues with software not running on it, but for the most part they've been either optional (I've done without) or I've just used one of my other computers to run it. BTW, I have a Brother All-in-one and it works fine under Vista64. I've been looking into upgrading this desktop from 4GB to 8GB of ram, btw.

Oh, it bears mentioning that some of the the "next" CPUs from Intel, using the Nehalem microarchitecture, will use 3 memory channels. This, combined with the fact that 2GB memory modules now seem to be the pricing sweet spot, means that we'll start to see computers ship with 6GB of memory later in the year. These computers will be shipping with Vista64.

All this said, the easiest OS to use and support right now is 32-bit XP.I hear Windows Mojave is pretty stable. :D :D :D

uhm .. where did you get that from?

user address space is separate from the kernel's address space, and the kernel only uses the exact amount of physical memory that it needs at any point in time. Each application running in any of the modern operating systems, gets its own unique address space to run in.

-David


Virtual Address Space (http://www.ditii.com/2007/09/28/windows-memory-management-x86-virtual-address-space/)

If you recall, each user-mode process on a 32-bit Windows system can have up to 2GB of private address space, with the rest being reserved for the Operating System (we’re assuming that the /3GB switch is not in play at the moment).

Virtual Address Space (http://www.ditii.com/2007/09/28/windows-memory-management-x86-virtual-address-space/)

If you recall, each user-mode process on a 32-bit Windows system can have up to 2GB of private address space, with the rest being reserved for the Operating System.

Yes, with the emphasis on the word each.

In your original post, you said "A 32-bit OS usually configures the address space into 2 GB for system and 2 GB for user programs" which implies a total of 2GB of address space for all user programs, doesn't it? If that's not what you meant, then ok, but that's how I read it.

Each user-mode process can get up to 2GB of address space in 32-bit Windows OS according to your reference.

This is done by both the software and hardware. User-mode addresses are qualified by a key, typically a thread-id or process-id or something like that that both hardware and software use when translating a user-mode virtual address to a physical address. So a given address x in one application is not the same physical page as address x in another application. (It can be, if x refers to a shared mapping, but let's not go there.)

I think we all agree that the benefit of a 64-bit Windows OS is the ability to manage more physical memory and the ability for applications to map more of their own virtual address space if and when they need it.

-David