32-bit Vista with a 64-bit AMD Gateway

[Tim Murray]

My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

[Ben Myers]

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.

Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you
get the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words,
consumers are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a
64-bit operating system... Ben Myers

[Jim Beard]

Post by Ben Myers

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip
and it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.
Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you
get the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words,
consumers are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a
64-bit operating system... Ben Myers

There is a 64-bit Vista, but not everything on it works properly
and some things are missing that are in the 32-bit version. The
rumor, gossip, & hearsay I find on the Wild & Wooly estimates
that the 64-bit should be the preferred version for ordinary
users by 2015.

Given Micro$loth's usual habit of having all upgrades available
on schedule, that may be optimistic.

Cheers!

jim b.

[Ben Myers]

Post by Ben Myers

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip
and it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I
do not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.
Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only a home version
of Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer,
you get the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words,
consumers are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a
64-bit operating system... Ben Myers

There is a 64-bit Vista, but not everything on it works properly and
some things are missing that are in the 32-bit version. The
rumor, gossip, & hearsay I find on the Wild & Wooly estimates that the
64-bit should be the preferred version for ordinary users by 2015.
Given Micro$loth's usual habit of having all upgrades available on
schedule, that may be optimistic.
Cheers!
jim b.

True. But AFAIK (and I am never one to be confused by the facts
either), 64-bit Vista is not available in any Home version, only the
Pro, Ultimate, and Super Ultimate Extreme-with-a-Side-of-Sushi versions.

Leave it to Microsoft to confuse us AND itself with this proliferation
of Vista versions. Or was that Vista virgins? Now that would be a
great marketing ploy, but it would appeal mostly to menfolk... Ben Myers

[Rodney Pont]

Post by Ben Myers
True. But AFAIK (and I am never one to be confused by the facts
either), 64-bit Vista is not available in any Home version, only the
Pro, Ultimate, and Super Ultimate Extreme-with-a-Side-of-Sushi versions.

Even Vista Home Basic edition is available in 64 bit, see
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=11765

[Ben Myers]

Post by Rodney Pont

Post by Ben Myers
True. But AFAIK (and I am never one to be confused by the facts
either), 64-bit Vista is not available in any Home version, only the
Pro, Ultimate, and Super Ultimate Extreme-with-a-Side-of-Sushi versions.

Even Vista Home Basic edition is available in 64 bit, see
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=11765

So it is! Chalk one up for Acer-eGateMachines wanting to limit the
number of operating system versions it supports, albeit badly.

... Ben Myers

[Tim Murray]

Post by Rodney Pont
Even Vista Home Basic edition is available in 64 bit, see
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=11765

I always though it was 32-only, too.

[carlkeehn]

Post by Ben Myers

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and
it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.
Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you get
the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words, consumers
are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a 64-bit operating
system... Ben Myers

Dell has been shipping a Vista-64 Home Premium for a few months now. Both
my wifes Inspiron 518 and my sons Studio One 19 came with Vista 64 bit.
Base machines seem to be shipped with 32 bit Vista Home Basic, the mid-level
and top line models get 64 bit Home Premium.

Carl

[SC Tom]

Post by Ben Myers

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and
it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.
Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you get
the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words, consumers
are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a 64-bit operating
system... Ben Myers

64-bit Vista is available in all flavors.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/

Most PC's/notebooks I've seen or considered were loaded with 32-bit Home
Premium. I don't think it's a matter of MS thinking that home users are too
dumb for 64-bit; I think it's more of a matter of home users not necessarily
needing 64-bit for what they do. Since most home users do more gaming than
anything else (I know, that's a generalization), and there aren't too many
64-bit games out there, and 64-bit Vista doesn't seem to run 32-bit programs
all that well, MS and the manufacturers just put a 32-bit version on their
most popular market machines. 32-bit is cheaper, too.

That's just my opinion, I may be wrong.
SC Tom

[Richard P]

Post by SC Tom

Post by Ben Myers

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and
it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Is there a 64-bit Home version of Vista? Somehow, I doubt it, but I do
not confess to being any sort of expert on all the permutations,
combinations and versions of Vista.
Acer-eGatemachines seems to be following the same approach as Dell and
HPaq. If you are a consumer, you probably get only the home version of
Vista, even if it is only 32 bit. If you are a business customer, you get
the choice of either 32-bit or 64-bit Vista. In other words, consumers
are a low-class caste, too dumb to know what to do with a 64-bit operating
system... Ben Myers

64-bit Vista is available in all flavors.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/
Most PC's/notebooks I've seen or considered were loaded with 32-bit Home
Premium. I don't think it's a matter of MS thinking that home users are too
dumb for 64-bit; I think it's more of a matter of home users not necessarily
needing 64-bit for what they do. Since most home users do more gaming than
anything else (I know, that's a generalization), and there aren't too many
64-bit games out there, and 64-bit Vista doesn't seem to run 32-bit programs
all that well, MS and the manufacturers just put a 32-bit version on their
most popular market machines. 32-bit is cheaper, too.
That's just my opinion, I may be wrong.
SC Tom

32bit programs run fine on 64bit vista, sometimes they even run faster.
Gaming and 64bit work really well as it lets you use more than 2gb of
ram properly. They put 32bit on machines because mostly they only
install 1-3GB of ram. I've been running 64bit vista and XP since they
came out and have had no problems whatsoever. It's true that there anrmt
many games natively supporting 64bit but all the games I have which are
most of the latest released run flawlessly. I woulnd't go back to 32bit
for anything as it's faster and has support for loads of memory.

Hope this helps

[R. C. White]

Hi, Tim.

No need to wonder about whether Vista Home Premium - or any other version -
is available in 64-bit. ALL versions of Vista are available in both 32-bit
and 64-bit editions. Just go to the official site to get all the details:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/home-basic.aspx

To compare 32-bit and 64-bit, just type "64 bit" into the search box.

Remember that Vista has been on the market for nearly 3 years now. When it
arrived in 2006, 32-bit was still the dominant platform, so most new
computers - even 64-bit machines - came with 32-bit Vista pre-installed. At
that time, many manufacturers of printers and other peripherals had not
written 64-bit drivers for their hardware, because they did not yet see a
market for those drivers. And many software developers had not yet produced
versions of their software that would run in a 64-bit operating system.

A lot has happened in the computer world in the last 3 years. Now, it's
hard to find a new computer with a 32-bit CPU. And 64-bit drivers are not
scarce anymore. But my perception is that many - and perhaps most - 64-bit
computers still come with 32-bit Vista pre-installed.

The good news is that a new buyer of 32-bit Vista can get the 64-bit version
from Microsoft or from the computer OEM for a very low cost. I haven't
needed it so I haven't checked it out, but I'm sure the answer is at that
URL above. Of course, since it's a Gateway, it probably would be best to
check the Gateway website first.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
***@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

[PvdG]

Post by R. C. White
Hi, Tim.
No need to wonder about whether Vista Home Premium - or any other
version - is available in 64-bit. ALL versions of Vista are available in
both 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Just go to the official site to get all
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/home-basic.aspx
To compare 32-bit and 64-bit, just type "64 bit" into the search box.
Remember that Vista has been on the market for nearly 3 years now. When
it arrived in 2006, 32-bit was still the dominant platform, so most new
computers - even 64-bit machines - came with 32-bit Vista pre-installed.
At that time, many manufacturers of printers and other peripherals had not
written 64-bit drivers for their hardware, because they did not yet see a
market for those drivers. And many software developers had not yet
produced versions of their software that would run in a 64-bit operating
system.
A lot has happened in the computer world in the last 3 years. Now, it's
hard to find a new computer with a 32-bit CPU. And 64-bit drivers are not
scarce anymore. But my perception is that many - and perhaps most -
64-bit computers still come with 32-bit Vista pre-installed.
The good news is that a new buyer of 32-bit Vista can get the 64-bit
version from Microsoft or from the computer OEM for a very low cost. I
haven't needed it so I haven't checked it out, but I'm sure the answer is
at that URL above. Of course, since it's a Gateway, it probably would be
best to check the Gateway website first.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

To add a bit to this explanation...
Before considering a move from 32 bit to 64 bit Vista, especially on a
laptop, go to the laptop manufacturer's web site and *make sure* there are
64 bit drivers for every piece of hardware in the computer. I suspect that
many laptops early in the Vista era did not have 64 bit driver support,
another reason for shipping the 64 bit hardware with a 32 bit OS.

[Justin Thompson]

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Are you al getting confused on the question? Not sure he is asking
about Windows/Vista version 32 or 64 bit

I think he may be asking about why he has a 64 bit processor with a 32
bit OS.

[Tim Murray]

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and
it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Are you al getting confused on the question? Not sure he is asking about
Windows/Vista version 32 or 64 bit
I think he may be asking about why he has a 64 bit processor with a 32 bit
OS.

What got me to look in the first place was that I noticed it was not a fast
machine at all. In fact, I thought it was rather sluggish. This was my very
first hands-on experience with Vista, and didn't know what to expect.

I had my old workhorse PowerBook G4 1.66MHz with 2GB next to it, and my
neighbors were oohing and ahhing over its apparent speed and responsiveness.
I didn't want the neighbors to feel bad about their purchase, so I
whitewashed it with some jargon crap about Unix.

When I saw the Gateway had that chip and 3GB RAM, I wondered if 32-bit
Windows on a 64-bit chip could behave like that. I guess I was asking from
the angle of wondering if my neighbor could complain and get a 64-bit for
free.

[Ben Myers]

Post by Tim Murray

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and
it came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Are you al getting confused on the question? Not sure he is asking about
Windows/Vista version 32 or 64 bit
I think he may be asking about why he has a 64 bit processor with a 32 bit
OS.

What got me to look in the first place was that I noticed it was not a fast
machine at all. In fact, I thought it was rather sluggish. This was my very
first hands-on experience with Vista, and didn't know what to expect.
I had my old workhorse PowerBook G4 1.66MHz with 2GB next to it, and my
neighbors were oohing and ahhing over its apparent speed and responsiveness.
I didn't want the neighbors to feel bad about their purchase, so I
whitewashed it with some jargon crap about Unix.
When I saw the Gateway had that chip and 3GB RAM, I wondered if 32-bit
Windows on a 64-bit chip could behave like that. I guess I was asking from
the angle of wondering if my neighbor could complain and get a 64-bit for
free.

First, Vista is a slug compared to Windows XP when run on identical
hardware, and that explains Vista's underwhelming success in the
marketplace. Microsoft paid attention to eye candy with Vista and not
to common sense things like getting the job done that a computer is
intended to do. Microsoft shot itself in the foot with Vista and is now
madly trying to recover with Windows 7, which will be available by year
end or sooner.

Second, I understand that OS 9 and OS X were built on top of a Unix
kernel (BSD?), which explains why your PowerBook runs lean and mean.
The Unix and Linux crowd to which Apple is now firmly attached have done
sound software engineering for their operating system variants, and
Apple has done the same.

So you are comparing an operating system engineered (and actually
designed!) for good performance against software written by an
organization committed to bloatware forever to sell more and more new
hardware systems with ever more copies of Windows. If this sounds like
a condemnation of Microsoft's software engineering practices, well, it
is. Microsoft also has at least a few wrong-headed marketing types who
steered it down the treacherous Vista path.

The 64-bit version of Vista will do nothing to improve system
performance without a substantial memory upgrade. After all, the 64-bit
instructions are bigger than the 32-bit ones, not by a factor of two,
but programs are bigger, take up more disk space and take up more memory
when running. As for any speed advantage of 64-bit over 32-bit, ANY OS,
I'll believe it when I see it. The primary advantage of a 64-bit OS is
to provide greater memory addressability so that programs can be bigger
and can operate on ever larger data bases and elements of data (e.g.
PhotoShop and 12M pixel RAW photos)... Ben

[Tim Murray]

Post by Ben Myers
The primary advantage of a 64-bit OS is
to provide greater memory addressability so that programs can be bigger
and can operate on ever larger data bases and elements of data (e.g.
PhotoShop and 12M pixel RAW photos)

Ahhh, great. So MS Office can have even more space to do what it wants to do,
instead of what *I* want it to do.

[Ben Myers]

Post by Tim Murray

Post by Ben Myers
The primary advantage of a 64-bit OS is
to provide greater memory addressability so that programs can be bigger
and can operate on ever larger data bases and elements of data (e.g.
PhotoShop and 12M pixel RAW photos)

Ahhh, great. So MS Office can have even more space to do what it wants to do,
instead of what *I* want it to do.

YES! More memory for the Borg to assimilate... Ben Myers

[Justin Thompson]

Post by Tim Murray
My neighbor just bought a Gateway T-1631 with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip and it
came with Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
Is this typical of Gateway to match 32-bit Windows with a 64-bit chip?

Are you al getting confused on the question? Not sure he is asking
about Windows/Vista version 32 or 64 bit

I think he may be asking about why he has a 64 bit processor with a 32
bit OS.