Making the switch - XP 32-bit to Vista 64-bit

[EnderW]

I'm making the switch from XP Pro 32-bit to Vista 64-bit.
Anything weird or special I should know? Any common issues to watch for?
Just looking for advice and/or tips in general.

New system specs since everyone loves them
P5Q Deluxe
Q9450
4GB DDR2 Corsair Dominator
VelociRaptor
Radeon 4870
Corsair 620W

 

[lodingi]

It should be a painless upgrade for you. Good luck.

 

[EnderW]

Is there something like the XP Power Tools Image Resizer for Vista x64?
I like being able to resize a picture in 2 clicks

also, what's a good burning program?
I've been using Nero 6.0.1.18 or something like that forever because I don't like how bloated the later versions are
I just want something to burn music CDs, data DVDs, and ISOs/other image files

 

[IrishRangerWingMedic]

Why are you upgrading?

I went from XP 32 to Vista 64 about 5 months ago, but there was absolutely no advantage.

Mostly I tried it because it was the latest, I wanted to unlock my 4GB RAM, and it looked cool.

Problem List:
The upgrade cost about €250
Major problems with drivers for my hardware (music keyboards, etc).
Vista 64 takes up major HD space - many multiples of XP.
It was slower to do normal operations.
It is obstructive with security messages/dialog boxes.

On reinstallation of XP32, I realised how fast XP really is.
- Of course it has the advantage of several years patches, but has Vista 64 got to offer?

There are very few truly 64 bit applications to unlock the power of the Vista 64 bit platform.
Vista 64 bit seems to be a hybrid 32 and 64 bit OS, and can't do both efficiently.
It has disappointingly poor uptake from software developers.

Give it a go yourself and decide, but do good backups for a return to the old school of XP 32.

 

[EnderW]

Why are you upgrading?

I went from XP 32 to Vista 64 about 5 months ago, but there was absolutely no advantage.

Mostly I tried it because it was the latest, I wanted to unlock my 4GB RAM, and it looked cool.

Problem List:
The upgrade cost about €250
Major problems with drivers for my hardware (music keyboards, etc).
Vista 64 takes up major HD space - many multiples of XP.
It was slower to do normal operations.
It is obstructive with security messages/dialog boxes.

On reinstallation of XP32, I realised how fast XP really is.
- Of course it has the advantage of several years patches, but has Vista 64 got to offer?

There are very few truly 64 bit applications to unlock the power of the Vista 64 bit platform.
Vista 64 bit seems to be a hybrid 32 and 64 bit OS, and can't do both efficiently.
It has disappointingly poor uptake from software developers.

Give it a go yourself and decide, but do good backups for a return to the old school of XP 32.

same reasons as you
Mostly I tried it because it was the latest, I wanted to unlock my 4GB RAM, and it looked cool.


As for your problems

The upgrade cost about €250 - didn't cost me anything to upgrade, I have a TechNet subscription already with a bunch of licenses, and I was building a new computer either way

Major problems with drivers for my hardware (music keyboards, etc). - keyboards? wow, so far everything is working fine

Vista 64 takes up major HD space - many multiples of XP. - not an issue, I've got plenty of space

It was slower to do normal operations. - such as? my normal operations are just browsing, downloading and watching videos, using Office occasionally and it's about as snappy as I could imagine

It is obstructive with security messages/dialog boxes. - I agree, that's annoying, but you can turn them off


I figured I could try it out and if it's too bad, just go back to XP

 

[jyi786]

Problem List:
The upgrade cost about €250 Cost was free.

When I built my rig, I built it with future software upgrades in mind.

Major problems with drivers for my hardware (music keyboards, etc).

I had ONE, repeat, ONE driver incompatibility: my scanner adapter (USBXchange). This was solved with a <drumroll please...> VM WinXP Pro through VirtualBox. So now all my devices work perfectly with Vista x64.

Vista 64 takes up major HD space - many multiples of XP.

Yes, but so what. 500GB costs $75.00 if you look around right now.

It was slower to do normal operations.

Such as? Everything is a whole lot faster for me. Wait for Superfetch to do its thing, then you'll see.

It is obstructive with security messages/dialog boxes.

I agree with this, but I simply shut off UAC.

On reinstallation of XP32, I realised how fast XP really is.
- Of course it has the advantage of several years patches, but has Vista 64 got to offer?

On reinstallation of XP32, I realized how old XP was, that's all. As a matter of fact, it's NOT faster. It's a whole lot slower. Example? I have about 20+ tray icons (yes, I DO use most if not all of them on a daily basis). Vista x64 takes about 30 seconds to load everything and give me a fully open working desktop, complete with Winamp, Windows Live Mail, and Firefox. XP? Takes about 1.5 - 2 minutes minimum, and that's with the OS fully tweaked and tricked out.

There are very few truly 64 bit applications to unlock the power of the Vista 64 bit platform.

True, but so what? I get best of both worlds.

Vista 64 bit seems to be a hybrid 32 and 64 bit OS, and can't do both efficiently.

Excuse me? The ignorance exuding from this statement doesn't even deserve a response. Might want to do some research on this before you spout off.

It has disappointingly poor uptake from software developers.

That's their problem. I do understand that Vista requires more horsepower to run, but there's nothing wrong with the OS. Most of those software devs are being lazy. Perhaps they forgot their programs can run better on Vista than it can on XP.

Many things Microsoft could have done better (WTF were they thinking with all the freaking nested dialogs???), but overall the OS is much better than XP.

 

[King of Heroes]

I think alot of what's scaring people off of Vista is that it runs slower on a fresh install than XP. Many, if not all of them, aren't away of the new SuperFetch feature which means that Vista will actually get faster over time while XP slows down.

Thats my major beef with XP, and why I'm switching to Vista x64. XP is a friggin' packrat and its annoying having to do a wipe and reinstall every few months or so to keep everything snappy. Vista should be better with this.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Vista 64 takes up major HD space - many multiples of XP.

Vista in general uses more hard drive space, but this has always been the case with new OSes. Besides, are you still using a 20 GB hard drive? I didn't think so.

It was slower to do normal operations.

It is? Have an examples? It sounds like you didn't give Vista it's proper time to self-tune. You can't judge Vista right away.

It is obstructive with security messages/dialog boxes.

So turn UAC off. It is one simple check box.

Vista 64 bit seems to be a hybrid 32 and 64 bit OS, and can't do both efficiently.

It can actually do both efficiently. It runs native x64 code, with all of its benefits, but also runs x86 code without any performance hits. You get the best of both worlds.

 

[jyi786]

Vista in general uses more hard drive space, but this has always been the case with new OSes. Besides, are you still using a 20 GB hard drive? I didn't think so.

It is? Have an examples? It sounds like you didn't give Vista it's proper time to self-tune. You can't judge Vista right away.

So turn UAC off. It is one simple check box.

It can actually do both efficiently. It runs native x64 code, with all of its benefits, but also runs x86 code without any performance hits. You get the best of both worlds.

^ In first.

 

[legendz411]

Vista in general uses more hard drive space, but this has always been the case with new OSes. Besides, are you still using a 20 GB hard drive? I didn't think so.

It is? Have an examples? It sounds like you didn't give Vista it's proper time to self-tune. You can't judge Vista right away.

So turn UAC off. It is one simple check box.

It can actually do both efficiently. It runs native x64 code, with all of its benefits, but also runs x86 code without any performance hits. You get the best of both worlds.

One of the few mistakes I think MS made with Vista.
Joe Average consumer won't know that, and will penelize the OS for it.
Or he won't care and appreciate how it is fast after a week or so.

 

[DeaconFrost]

One of the few mistakes I think MS made with Vista.
Joe Average consumer won't know that, and will penelize the OS for it.
Or he won't care and appreciate how it is fast after a week or so.

Oh I think Joe Average will know about it...

I don't know if I would call it a mistake or not....because I certainly like having the self-tuning, but there comes a point in time where the OEMs need to take the blame for loading up on bloat, and the end users should take some of the responsibility of learing about what they are purchasing. Maybe I'm just giving the general public more than they can handle...unfortunately.

 

[Kangg]

Just make sure that all your hardware has 64 bit drivers. Double check all your software to make sure it will run in Vista and you should be golden. I did those two things and have had pretty much zero issues.

I use a newer version of Nero for burning, love the lightscribe capabilities. I had to break down and upgrade my TV media software to get it working right in vista but otherwise it's been perfect.

 

[Volcanon]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but if you have 4x1 GB of memory, you may bluescreen on install/first boot and will need to drop down to 2x1 GB and install a patch to get back up to 4x1.

Make sure to keep your XP install handy too, I switched back after my first move to Vista cause of performance issues.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but if you have 4x1 GB of memory, you may bluescreen on install/first boot and will need to drop down to 2x1 GB and install a patch to get back up to 4x1.

It seems so many people give this warning, but none of the important info to go with it. First, this mainly only affected Nvidia based boards. Secondly, if you are using Vista media with SP1 included, you already have the fix for this issue, and won't have to worry about removing memory.

 

[Romale23]

i just installed vista 64 myself, my media center doesn't work, think thats related to video card drivers but im not sure, when avast updates it crashes and amazon unbox doesn't work. IE crashes ALOT, no adobe 64bit support, that being i use opera and that works flawlessly so its not a big deal. oh and be SUPER careful not to install anything like the 2005 c++ redistrubtion packet for 32bit software cause i made that mistake once and had to reinstall, other then that it seems pretty ok,


edit: oh yeah do NOT install like the asus overclocking software and the like, its like oh hi you like vista? no you dont crash. Oh hey this time we wont even let you boot up (its related to the acpi driver the asus one doesn't work in vista or something)

 

[jyi786]

i just installed vista 64 myself, my media center doesn't work, think thats related to video card drivers but im not sure,

Could be video card drivers like you said. Try updating your drivers.

when avast updates it crashes

I tried avast, and it never crashed at all. I reverted back to AVG because I simply didn't like avast.

and amazon unbox doesn't work.

Unbox is a buggy piece of trash software. Well known everywhere how buggy it is. Do a quick Google on it.

IE crashes ALOT,

Really? What are the error messages?

no adobe 64bit support,

And this is the OSes fault how?

oh and be SUPER careful not to install anything like the 2005 c++ redistrubtion packet for 32bit software cause i made that mistake once and had to reinstall,

Didn't have any problem with that either. That got installed or something to that effect when I installed UT2004 and some other games on my Vista x64; never gave me a problem.

edit: oh yeah do NOT install like the asus overclocking software and the like, its like oh hi you like vista? no you dont crash. Oh hey this time we wont even let you boot up (its related to the acpi driver the asus one doesn't work in vista or something)

Overclocking in software is not recommended. If you seriously want to OC, go to your BIOS and set it. Same goes for BIOS flashing in the OS; unless you want to royally screw something up, don't do it.

The mass majority of the problems people are having with Vista is between the keyboard and the chair, except in a few select instances. That compounded with the fact that it's now more clearer than ever how many software devs are making shitty software, not to mention drivers. At least they can't do that with drivers anymore, especially if you want to get WHQL with Vista, you are REQUIRED to make both 32bit and 64bit drivers, and you really have no choice in skimping if you make the 64bit driver. So that's great for us: no more/less shitty drivers.

 

[dgingeri]

I did this a few months ago, however, I went with 8GB of memory. It made a huge difference in the performance of many things, some good some bad.

The good:
Many programs that I use frequently load much, much faster. loading zones in WoW is faster, the initial load of Outlook 2007 and FF are 3-5 seconds, not 30-40, and many things are absolutely instant. Even Diablo 2 runs great.

The security of Vista is great. From what I've read, the UAC prevent all rootkits from installing, and in order to test, they actually had to turn them off. I haven't had any incidents of attempted spyware installs, but I know I'm safer now.

I also love the part when I can hover the mouse over a minimized program and see an thuimbnail of it. Flipping through open windows is so much easier than hunting for the right icon under XP.

The bad:
certain program just don't work with Vista. Bejewelled 1 and 2 won't run correctly. the copy protection sucks, and keeps asking for the original CD, then when I put it in, it doesn't see it. Starfleet Command doesn't run right at all. it crashes repeatedly on load. They are old programs, so I kind of expected it, but I would still like to run them.

Virtual PC has a major impact on performance. My system ran Virtual machines very quick under XP, but Vista causes the whole system to just crawl.

There is also the issue with my company's VPN solution. It loads the Cisco Clean Access Agent, which causes my UAC to come up and prompt on every boot, then the network won't work until I reset the network adaptor. It is a real pain. Booting takes 3-5 minutes because of this. Without that Cisco program, it boots in about 30 seconds, far faster than XP.

 

[EnderW]

This is not a Vista vs XP thread

could we get back on topic?

Is there something like the XP Power Tools Image Resizer for Vista x64?
I like being able to resize a picture in 2 clicks

also, what's a good burning program?
I've been using Nero 6.0.1.18 or something like that forever because I don't like how bloated the later versions are
I just want something to burn music CDs, data DVDs, and ISOs/other image files

 

[dgingeri]

I went with Nero 7 for CD/DVD burning for multiple reasons. Yeah, it bloated, but it works with DVD Shrink and I'm familiar with the interface.

I have no ideas about the image resizer. I never used anything like that.

 

[LstBrunnenG]

For CD/DVD burning needs, a combination of WMP, Windows Explorer, and this fine ISO recorder have done me wonders without costing me a cent.

 

[lodingi]

This is not a Vista vs XP thread

could we get back on topic?

Was gonna say just that. The OP did not ask which O/S to use, he asked a specific question. My first response stands true. You will not have any issues installing Vista 64 on your system. And you know what? It will run great.

BTW, Avast works flawlessly on my setup.

 

[mystykmax]

I did almost the same thing several months ago. The only problem I ran into was that my CISCO VPN client software wouldn't work with it. Other than that, it's flawless for what I do. I didn't have any drivers issues at all. I do have 8GB of RAM, but I don't know if that really matters a whole lot unless you are using photoshop, bridge, and Raw Magick Lite at once, say. Rumor has it that Adobe Creative Suite 4 will offer 64-bit binaries for Windows and might even be out sooner than later.

I use Avast Anti-virus and it works flawlessly for me.

 

[dgingeri]

I'm sorry if my previous post sounded like a "XP vs Vista" post. it wasn't meant to. I was just to give the OP an idea of what to expect.

As with nearly every other OS update, there are things that go very right and things that go very wrong. With Vista, it has been more extreme than any OS change I have ever dealt with, and I've been using MS OS's since DOS 3.3. I just wanted to make sure he knew this. Many people focus on the bad things, and some, decidedly fewer, focus only on the good things, but reality is that it is more of a balancing act between those 2. Although, I still wouldn't recommend it for a corporate OS.

 

[EnderW]

OK, I need a replacement for Gmail Notifier.
It installed OK and seemed to be working, but I don't get a popup from the taskbar, only the sound.

 

[DeaconFrost]

OK, I need a replacement for Gmail Notifier.

Does this help out at all?

 

[bigj2k1]

I've been running Vista x64 for about a year now and Love it, SP1 solved quite a few of my issues, the only thing that I had a problem with was having 8 Gigs of ram on Initial boot up yeah...it didn't like that took out a stick and it worked fine patched rebooted and re-installed the ram 5 minutes of extra time.

Personally I love Vista, sure it has its little bugs Like having to click 17 times to get to the network adapters, but its fast and keeps itself pretty clean.

I lost a hard drive the other day while playing a game, and vista didn't even care it popped up a little message that said i had a hardware error. Sure enough Clicking hard drive, damn computer never even skipped a beat...I was happy!

 

[Krycek1]

What problems will I have if I upgrade and I'm using my current soundcard? I want to be able to use it bu I hear some soundcards have problems with Vista.

 

[DeaconFrost]

What problems will I have if I upgrade and I'm using my current soundcard? I want to be able to use it bu I hear some soundcards have problems with Vista.

Go to their website and check for drivers....that's about all you can do at this point.

 

[EnderW]

Does this help out at all?

saw that, but I think paying $7 for an email notifier is ridiculous

 

[DeaconFrost]

Oooops....didn't click in far enough to see that is was paid software. How about any of the E-mail notifiers that MajorGeeks have listed?

 

[EnderW]

well apparently there aren't any fucking drivers for my beloved HP 1012
I had to downgrade to a HP 1018 I had sitting around - basically the same printer, just a bit slower (12 ppm vs 15 ppm) and seems a bit louder
I'm glad I never threw it out, bought it when it was really cheap and just used the toner cartridge

 

[jyi786]

well apparently there aren't any fucking drivers for my beloved HP 1012
I had to downgrade to a HP 1018 I had sitting around - basically the same printer, just a bit slower (12 ppm vs 15 ppm) and seems a bit louder
I'm glad I never threw it out, bought it when it was really cheap and just used the toner cartridge

That's really no problem. Run a VirtualBox as a VM and use your printer to your content.

 

[EnderW]

That's really no problem. Run a VirtualBox as a VM and use your printer to your content.

got any detailed instructions?

 

[jyi786]

got any detailed instructions?

Well, have you ever run a VM before? If not, you can download Virtualbox's guide here.

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.6.0/UserManual.pdf

Now, as for the USB part, you know very well that each USB device has a VID. It's important that you do 2 things: that you know the VID for your device and that in Vista's device manager, you ensure that the printer in question is NOT disabled.

During setup of your VM, ensure that you apply the proper USB filter for your printer. Whenever you need to use that printer, load up the VM (WinXP for example). The VM will take control of the device, and, voila, it will work perfectly!

This is how I got my scanner working with Vista. There are no x64 drivers for the connecting device (Adaptec USBXchange). I simply loaded a VM of WinXP, and now I use my scanner perfectly!

If you need anymore help, just let me know. I'll try my best to help you. Bottom line is, don't give up Vista just because you can't use one device. It's just a VM away from functioning perfectly.

 

[EnderW]

Well, have you ever run a VM before? If not, you can download Virtualbox's guide here.

http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.6.0/UserManual.pdf

Now, as for the USB part, you know very well that each USB device has a VID. It's important that you do 2 things: that you know the VID for your device and that in Vista's device manager, you ensure that the printer in question is NOT disabled.

During setup of your VM, ensure that you apply the proper USB filter for your printer. Whenever you need to use that printer, load up the VM (WinXP for example). The VM will take control of the device, and, voila, it will work perfectly!

This is how I got my scanner working with Vista. There are no x64 drivers for the connecting device (Adaptec USBXchange). I simply loaded a VM of WinXP, and now I use my scanner perfectly!

If you need anymore help, just let me know. I'll try my best to help you. Bottom line is, don't give up Vista just because you can't use one device. It's just a VM away from functioning perfectly.

Thanks. I'll probably just stick with the 1018 as it's not that much slower and an extra step when printing would be irritating - I did understand correnctly that the VM will need to be loaded each time I print something?
However, apparently there are no x64 drivers at all for my scanner, Canon Lide 30, so I'll likely use this solution for that device.

 

[jyi786]

Thanks. I'll probably just stick with the 1018 as it's not that much slower and an extra step when printing would be irritating - I did understand correnctly that the VM will need to be loaded each time I print something?
However, apparently there are no x64 drivers at all for my scanner, Canon Lide 30, so I'll likely use this solution for that device.

Quite unfortunately, that is correct. But you have to know something, that, provided you have a stout rig (like mine in my sig), opening a VM of let's say, WinXP, will be simply akin to opening another program (Photoshop, for example). It's that simple. This holds particularly true since you'll be moving to Vista x64. So whenever I have to scan something, which is fairly regularly, I simply open the VM just like I'm opening Photoshop. It's so fast and easy I forget that it's a VM.

Now, trying to run a VM under XP Pro? That's pure hell. Been there, done that. It's amazing that I can run 3 VMs side by side in Vista x64 with almost NO performance penalty. Virtualization FTW.

 

[EnderW]

I gotta say, vista is definitely growing on me. It's so much "prettier" than XP.
I am getting an occasional BSOD, not sure what that's about - gonna test my RAM over night.
I might have jacked something up messing around with printer and video card drivers, so I'm gonna wipe everything and do a fresh install once I have everything set, that way I know exactly what do the next time.
Then after that I'll make an image of the drive for future backup. I'm also thinking about putting XP SP3 on here too since I have the space, but more than likely I'll bite the bullet and learn how to use virtual machines as I think that would be a more elegant solution for the times when I do need to do something in 32bit.

 

[jyi786]

I gotta say, vista is definitely growing on me. It's so much "prettier" than XP.
I am getting an occasional BSOD, not sure what that's about - gonna test my RAM over night.
I might have jacked something up messing around with printer and video card drivers, so I'm gonna wipe everything and do a fresh install once I have everything set, that way I know exactly what do the next time.
Then after that I'll make an image of the drive for future backup. I'm also thinking about putting XP SP3 on here too since I have the space, but more than likely I'll bite the bullet and learn how to use virtual machines as I think that would be a more elegant solution for the times when I do need to do something in 32bit.

That's great to hear. Vista is definitely one of those things that grow on you, for the better. And VMs are unbelievably versatile. I'm so glad I foraged into those waters not too long ago.

 

[jbean7457]

Upgraded from XP32 to Vista64 and it's been the most painless upgrade I've ever had. I've only had minor problems with programs (but was able to download a Vista compatible version) and cod4 wouldn't play (sound driver setting).

Otherwise it's every bit as fast as XP (for me) and I'm really liking all the bells and whistles, don't hesitate.. just do it

 

[Yanks2435]

Does anyone else have a weird bug where play/pause on their keyboard doesn't work unless WMP, Zune, or whatever you are using is not minimized ? I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-Bit with a Wireless Desktop Elite keyboard