Can I install Vista64 right on top of Vista 32?

Question

I have been reading about Vista64 being ready to install in terms of drivers, compatibility, etc. Rather than starting fresh, can it be installed right over my existing copy of windows without partitioning?

Answer 1

Only if your machine is 64 bit, and you run an upgrade install.

Answer 2

No you cannot. Vista64 must be installed fresh/clean or on a 64bit OS. This is because the installer and everything with it is written in 64bit code and it will not install when an 32bit operating system is in use because it will not be able to read it or pick it up. Kind of like if you went to China and spoke American English to a random citizen they would probably not be able to understand you. So America is a 64 bit OS and China is 32 bit. Expect many difficulties and misunderstandings. But lets say you went to England than it would work out okay because England is a 64 bit OS.

Anyway, just do a clean install. No worries about your files being deleted because when you install Windows Vista (does not matter which version) over a previous Windows Vista installation, it will move your files and folders to a section called "Windows Old" inside the hard drive where your program and windows etc. directories are. Remember though your programs will not work but your files will be there. Well maybe your programs will work since overwriting Vista with another Vista is basically using the same source code that it installed your previous programs with. But who know! Give it a try. Well not in this case because you will be installed a 64 bit OS in place of your 32 bit OS so the whole code is different. But it might have worked in the case of a 32 bit Vista installation.

Remember your processor must be 64 bit capable. Usually newer ones can do it. You should really look up all the information you can on your pc's specs. Also a benefit from 64 bit computing in theory is the ability to access more RAM. Up to 128 GB to be exact. I state this in "theory" because most motherboards cannot support that much. 2GB should suffice as it's minimum. And do not listen to people when they say it will be hard to find drivers for your hardware unless your PC is old. I am running on Vista64 Ultimate and Vista found all the drivers I needed except for the sound. I just google'd my sound card and found a supporting driver. But to be on the safe side take my advice and go online now and look up all your drivers that are 64 bit or capable. Download them and burn them to a cd/dvd or put them on a memory stick or external drive so that way when your new Vista64 OS is ready for use you can easily have them handy. Even if Windows Update does this for you it is still peace of mind knowing you got a hefty backup of your computer core devices such as chipset software, Ethernet/wireless lan controllers etc.

Oh and by the way no need in partitioning, just do a clean install. Also Windows Vista's partitioning software is very buggy, well for at least. They need to fix that.

EDIT-

Sorry I forgot to mention Vista 64 bit (including previous XP 64bit Edition) comes with an emulator knows as WOW64 "Windows On Windows64" which is an emulator that can emulate 32 bit applications to run on 64 bit Windows. Your applications will still be in 32 bit code but with a 64 bit wrapper on them. You will experience no performance gain with this. Obviously because they are written in 32 bit code and and it is well not 64 bit. It was smart of Microsoft to have added this feature. But your native 64bit applications should be 2x as fast as your old OS and applications doubling the amount of processed data. Not to mention in 64 bit OS's it addresses RAM differently and if you do not have the minimum as I stated earlier it could have a negative impact on performance. That is for Windows Vista only. I do not know about XP though. But yes I was reading on an online tech site that 64bit OS's and their capabilities on being 2x faster is all "theory" but it sounds like a pretty sweet theory so what would it hurt to not have a 64 bit OS anyway haha. But better to make the switch cause the way things are looking 64 bit OS's will soon be dominating the OS market.

By the way Windows Vista x64 has quite the horsepower tucked under it's hood. People think Vista 32 bit is a horsepower resource hogging monstrosity they should get a taste of the need for speed with the 64 bit version!

Answer 3

yes, you can do that

however, you'll need to update all of your drivers and get the 64-bit versions of them.

also, i suggest you get at least 4GB RAM to take full advantage of Vista's x64 architecture.

and don't forget... you'll need a processor that's capable of handling a 64-bit OS.

If you have Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad, AMD Phenom X3, AMD Phenom X4, etc. (newer ones), you're fine...

also, back up your important data before upgrading. and be aware that some programs will not work with 64-bit Vista. For example, I previously had Iolo's System Mechanic installed on my 32-bit XP machine. I also wanted to install it on my 64-bit Vista machine, but there is no stable 64-bit version of the software. but most applications will work fine. your main concern should be drivers and stuff though. I've never had problems, but numerous other people have. get the right versions when updating them!

um i think you may need to reformat your hard drive and remove 32-bit vista though and then install 64-bit vista if just installing it over the 32-bit version doesn't work.

Answer 4

Yes and no. All of your driver would have to be upgraded to 64 bit, as well as some applications not being compatible with 64bit. So yes you probably could, but with the errors you would get and the amount of work you woul dhave to do, I would recommend a backup and clean install.