Vista - newbie choosing which vista

Hi,

i'm a bit limited in knowlegde and wondered if i could get a little advice.

i've just purchased a media pc with no OS installed.

it has 4GB Ram, 7.?? GHz processor and 500GB HD.

i've been looking at vista and have seen that there is a 32bit and 64bit version and also both 32&64 together.

to cut a long story short, i'm not sure what would be best to install and use for me. I'll only really be using it for media purposes, t'internet and the occasional word doc.

I know that i require 64bit to optimise the 4GB Ram but apart from that i'm not sure of the benefits of 64 over 32 and what i would be missing by not installing 32bit.

what i would like to know is what would be the benefits/ disadvantages of only installing 64bit? (for my limited and basic use of course)

thanks

32 bit you won't be able to use all of your 4 GB of ram so if you want to utilize all of your ram I would go with 64 bit. Also you should see if you can find all of your drivers for 64 bit cause if you can't 32 bit would be the way to go.

thanks for that.

am i able to install both though. i only ask as i see that MS actually sell them in one pack?

thanks

Yes you can you will have to setup a dual boot just partition your drive in half or what ever you want and run the dvd and just follow the instructions.

ok, thanks for that...

thanks for your help.

Yep no problem if you have anymore just ask and someone will answer it for you.

I would suggest that you wait for a while for Windows 7 to come out. Oh, wait a minute, if you buy Windows Vista now, you can get Windows 7 for free once it comes out! Just make sure you buy Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. If you buy Home Premium, you will recieve Windows 7 Home Premium when it comes out. If you buy Business, you will get Windows 7 Pro. If you buy Ultimate, you will get Windows 7 Ultimate.

Make sure you can get 64 bit! 32 bit can't use all of the memory that you have, so I would recommend you to get 64 bit.

Hope this helps!

Ojaser6

Everyone suggests a 64-bit OS for memory purposes, which is good; however, if you only stick with 4gig or less of memory, then you may actually want to stick with a 32-bit OS.

Reason - sadly, there are still lots of hardware/software that will not work correctly under a 64-bit OS. A search of this board will show quite a few posters having problems with hardware/software after moving to (Vista) 64.

Most people will tell you to make sure you buy 64-bit compatible hardware/software, but that's not always easy, cheap, or attainable, especially if you already have a "version" of the hardware/software.

I myself run Vista 64 with little to no problems, but I also have a 32-bit OS (XP) installed because I have hardware, example: Nikon Scanner, and software, example ReaGallery that will never see the light of day for 64-bit support.

My point in this post is to get you to seriously think about the hardware/software you'll be using and do your homework "before" deciding on whether to get a 32 or 64-bit OS.

64-bit is the way of the future, but support is still a little slow by some vendors. Hopefully Windows 7 will push this over the edge, but for legacy hardware/software…well…those upgrades could be quite expensive to your bank account.

Just my two cents.

Yeah...my 1000th post!