Vista 32-bit or 64-bit

EJizzel

Im in the process of getting what I think is a nice laptop from HP and was curious if I should get the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Vista home premium. In a perfect world I would opt for XP but they dont offer that as a choice and from my research its difficult to get drivers for the dv2700t for XP.

I eventually plan on dual booting with Ubuntu 8.04 then afterwards wiping out Vista and use a virtualized instance of XP. What do you think?

ULWiz

I personally run a 64Bit Vista Business with 8GB of ram. I guess it really all depends on what you need and what you want to run. You should be fine with the 32bit os.

dynamik

Schluep shared this gem with some of us in a laptop thread: http://xoticpc.com

I just got one from them a couple of weeks ago.

They sell what is essentially the Dell, HP, etc. laptops without their logos and a bunch of preinstalled garbage. You can order them with XP or without an OS. You might want to play around there before you purchase from somewhere else. I personally run Vista 64 to get the full 4gb of ram for my VMs.

nel

Would you not rather get a dell and get ubuntu stuck on there to save some cash or does it have to be a HP? i thought HP sold linux laptops etc now?

EJizzel

Im going with HP because I have a credit line with them already and I really dont want to (and cant afford) to pay straight up for a new laptop. Im leaning towards the 64-bit because the main purpose for it is to create virtual machines and a portable lab environment

Schluep

I got both the 32 and 64 bit versions with mine. I have been using only the 64 bit though and I haven't had any problems that couldn't be easily corrected.

For your situation I would say go with the 64 bit for if you ever decide to use Vista (definitely worth checking out before you disregard it completely, if nothing else as a learning experience). Having the 64 bit would allow you to make better use of your processor but more importantly if you need to add RAM later for virtualization or other tasks. You know that the 64 bit OS drivers will work for your laptop hardware so the only questions is if there are any software issues. Most of the time if you can run the software on 32 bit Vista you can find a way to make it work on 64 bit even if it doesn't initially with a straight install.

Talic

Vista 64 on desktop here and Vista 32 on a T61. Both run fine and no problems with them. Just make sure you take the key off the laptop before you format and reinstall Vista on it. I personally think Vista 64 is more secure then Vista 32. I'm not a 100% sure about this but I believe most malware writers don't even consider Vista 64 when they are writing their crap. So their programs would have a harder time running on Vista 64. Of course I haven't ran into any viruses in awhile but I haven't ran into any spyware like I used to under XP.

RTmarc

Someone posted a link a while back that showed Vista 64bit was the fastest client OS ever created by Microsoft based on several benchmarks. If my machine is not running Server 2008, it is running Vista 64.

EJizzel

******Just an update******
I decide to go with this laptop [url] http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/product_detail.do?product_code=KN967UA#ABA[/url]
it comes with vista home premium 64 bit. I still intend to dual boot with Ubuntu 8.04, hopefully its not to much of a complicated install. I'll keep everyone updated.

Thank you all for you help.