32-bit to 64-bit

[GTAsoldier]

OK, now I'm generally happy with my 32-bit computer. I'm using it now. In the past, my computer was crashing because it had 4GB of RAM on a 32-bit computer. I removed one of the RAM sticks and the computer worked fine with 2GB. I thought it was a faulty RAM stick, so I just got a replacement 2GB RAM stick from CyberPower. But here's the thing:

I've heard that 32-bit Windows XPs can only handle like 2GB of RAM, and a 64-bit XP can handle 4GB. Does this mean I should upgrade my system to a 64-bit? Here are my current specs specs:

OS - Windows XP Home Edition 32bit SP3

Processor - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E7300 CPU @ 2.66GHz 1066FSB 3MB L2 Cache 64-bit

RAM - 2GB DDR2 Single Channel Memory (when I got it was a 2x2GB DDR2 until my OS was crashing with the BSOD

Video Card - GeForce 9800GT 512MB

Is my computer suitable for upgrading? If so, do I need a 64-bit Windows XP installation disk? (I've seen some that are only SP2)

Edited January 2, 2009 by GTAsoldier

[Chris]

Yes you might as well, your CPU is capable of 64bit computing, and yes you would need a 64bit OS, otherwise you won't notice any difference whatsoever.

32bit OS's are physically limited to allocating about 3.2GB worth of memory addresses, so if you have more RAM than that then it simply would go unused, rendering it useless. So yeah if you have 4GB or more of RAM you should definitely upgrade to a 64bit OS, XP or Vista.

If you have 64bit XP with SP2 then that's fine, all service packs are free so I don't know why there's this big thing with people worrying about it etc. You can simply upgrade to SP3.

[GTAsoldier]

OK, then. But upgrading it will completely wipe off all my software, documents, music, etc. like a clean install?

EDIT: And I've also heard that not a lot of 32-bit drivers work well with 64-bit OS.

Edited January 2, 2009 by GTAsoldier

[JustADummy]

There are 64-bit drivers. And yes, the 64-bit XP is a OS so you'll need to format your PC.

[GTAsoldier]

I'm also considering upgrading to Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Will that erase everything as well? Is this situation worth upgrading to Vista for?

BTW, I've checked the XP software computability for Vista thanks to this site

I'm happy to say that all my software and such (games, antivirus, etc.) can work good with it.

Edited January 2, 2009 by GTAsoldier

[Chris]

Yeah the driver issue is a big myth, only if you have really old hardware would you have trouble finding drivers for it.

I'm pretty sure you can choose to perform an upgrade when installing Vista so you shouldn't lose any data.

[chris82]

No, while you can upgrade from XP 32-bit to Vista 32-bit, you can't upgrade XP 32-bit to Vista 64-bit, or even Vista 32-bit to Vista 64-bit.

Your best bet to keep your stuff is to make a partition on your hard drive to store the things you can't re-install (music, movies, etc...) onto it and then format the partition with XP on it and install Vista. You can do the formatting and everything while installing Vista but you must make the partition and move the data to it beforehand. Once you have Vista installed, move your data to the Vista partition, delete the now-empty partition and re-install your games and programs.