Don't go from XP to Vista unless you go 64-bit

I see some have already started to try and gain hits to articles of theirs, with guesses on what Windows 7 will be like....

Windows 7 will not be like Vista SP1 as mentioned early in that article, why.. easy Vista SP2 will be out likely before W7 is, so would likely be more based on that as later mentioned in said article, however like all previous Windows versions they have all had close ties to the previous one in their type ie. 9x's all similar but small improvements on previous, all NTs have been close in many respects, so Windows 7 will not be disimilar to XP/Vista in some respects, but will expand on Vista and introduce new ideas... some folk will like some not.

I have no idea on what it will look like when it hits say a milestone build of Beta1 or 2 most didnt with Vista, Prescreen alphas of W7 superb, while thay now look like Vista, not necassarily that thats how it will end up as early Vista or its precurser name of Longhorn, looked like a themed XP.

64bit, while great in theory, again a discussion point for many trying it from XP was needing new hardware or software compatability, exactly the same for jumping to 64bit, need to make sure all hardware is 64bit compatable with drivers, also not all software will work, alot now does, but not all. However by the time of Windows 7, 64bit software and hardware will be very common so IMHO a great time to jump to 64bit if in that timeframe your due a new PC.

Ram is a goodun, ok we can pop 4GB of ram in a PC, great with run multiple apps fine but what apps do you know that would max out 4GB+ of ram?! Maybe great in image processing as Photoshop will eat as much as it can but day to day apps dont use much, and having 3GB of your 4GB free is a waste, unused ram is wasted ram.

Personally if we are wanting speed, we need to be able to get hybrid drives or SSDs cheaper, will blow a platter/motor driven HDD out of the water.


@Duckfeet, yes you can get the x64 media DVD from MSFT, while its not free its not too expensive, dont quote me on this but last time I read the pricing it was $30 or so, but follow the very bottom dropdown here

Personally in regards to speed of 64bit over 32bit, I dont notice too much of a difference between the two, although Office 2007 does seem snappier in 64bit, but not many apps are specifically written for 64bit OSes, while as I mentioned alot now are compatable they are not true 64bit so dont really run blisteringly quicker than 32bit, at the speeds of new multi core CPUs differences are not noticable to human eye.

@dlb, and others who like Surface, I have played with one of these a few weeks back at MSFT UK and you will be suprised "maybe" to hear that its underlying OS is Vista, Windows 7 is touted to be comping with touch capability for the new LCDs that are around to you can do similar to Surface. Surface is really cool but at circa $15k a go not cheap, but the multi touch is awsome, can track each finger from multiple people, so in its tabletop form makes a great community oriented PC, options like sending data via BlueTooth to your phone or PDA and if your camera is BT enabled being able to pop the camera on the table top and auto download the images is superb.

 

Relevant artlicle for me since the laptop I was looking at came with 64bit Vista. I had actually not realized before looking that in order to utilize a full 4GB of memory, you had to be running 64bit.

 

Yes limitations of the 32bit architecture, 64bit is the way forward and as your hardware is fully compatible (hopefully) then your set, dunno if you have come across many application you wanted to install that wouldnt work or not Laura? many popular ones should be 64bit compatible, some of the good malware removal tools are not yet sadly which is a pitty.

 

That was my specific question, Halo. (I have a thread in here somewhere about it.) Anyway, my main concern was software compatibility since presumably the hardware would all be compatible on a new computer.

I haven't gotten a laptop (am looking at an Acer...on your (I think) and others recommendations a while back. Or an ASUS). My current one's graphic card seems to be going. It's a known prob with this dell modelrolleyes and the only way to fix it is replace the card with a refurbished new one for a mere $400-500. I'm losing some pixels and blue screening whenever I do anything graphic intense (or no so intense actually).

I do think I'll be going with 64bit though.

 

Hi Laura, yes I have a ACER laptop and its great, did buy one for my neices to and with sub 10yr olds its survived!!! But I have not had any issues with it at all, came with Vista and I use that laptop for Vista testing so gets a hammering with Service Pack builds etc

Current hardware and PCs do tend from the big OEMs to have hardware that can easily migrate to x64 OSes but check if it would come with x64 Vista as default option, if not then check for drivers for it from the specs.

If they supply x64 Vista as default option then hardware should be no issue, mine wasnt but I tested x64 Vista on it and at RTM stage for Vista I had all the x64 drivers for it.


@Duckfeet, my pleasure.