2+ years with Vista

[law.of.averages]

So after 2 years working with Vista--and never once turning off UAC, I might add.

I have to say I'm very happy so far. Other than some trouble early on with some SATA drivers (thank you again NVidia for *finally* gathering your scat into one lump) I've been relatively blue-screen free for what seems like ages now.

I don't use the pretty flippy-window thing much. Mainly because Alt-Tab has been beaten into my brain for so long. But I have found it useful when I've had several windows of the same kind open. Other...seemingly minor features -- like 'favorite folders' I don't know how I lived without.

One that's gone from unusable to pure joy Suspend/Resume. Under XP you could make it work. Under Vista it's seamless. S3 uses 1 watt more than Off (about 7 watts more than Unplugged) and resume is almost instantaneous. I suspend all the time now, and I imagine it's made quite a dent in my electric bill over time.

But now there's a dark cloud on the horizion. I've been working with an XP 'upgrade' all this time. I think it's time to come clean...and maybe...maybe...even pile on an additional 32bits to boot.

So. Any thoughts?

[Porkinator]

I have been considering doing a 64 bit install with my Ultimate. I go the retail box (for free so there are some benfits selling computer stuff ) and it has both versions.
With RAM dirt cheap I can go from 4 to 8 gb but I might wait till I build a Core i7 system.

[Sideous Prime]

Law, I'm running Vista business x64 with 8 gb of pc800. i will never, ever go back to the 32 bit platform OS and neither will you. 4 gigs isn't worth it with x64. get the extra RAM, go with 8 or 16 gigs and make the jump worth your time and money. vista x64 is surprising compatible, just make sure your external hardware such as printers and scanners are too.

[law.of.averages]

Law, I'm running Vista business x64 with 8 gb of pc800. i will never, ever go back to the 32 bit platform OS and neither will you. 4 gigs isn't worth it with x64. get the extra RAM, go with 8 or 16 gigs and make the jump worth your time and money. vista x64 is surprising compatible, just make sure your external hardware such as printers and scanners are too.

Well like Pork, I got the 'retail' version of Ultimate that has both, so it's no money involved, just the time it'd take to make a new backup image, and then reinstall everything. Upgrading memory will probably have to wait until I bring the wife's machine up to speed...but unlike aforementioned wife, I don't run too much memory intensive software, so that's not a big deal.

[Sideous Prime]

i did the demo period of x86 vista and purchased licenses of x64 vista business and got 4 more gigs of ram. it does make a difference. a significant one. while true, i use memory intensive software, just during typical OS tasks you can clearly notice the difference. the OS is more stable(yes more stable) and it's faster.

here's my quandrom....most of the apps you would use under 64 bit are 32 bit apps. so if you're not going to upgrade your RAM or processor why upgrade to 64 bit?

[law.of.averages]

because i can? because it's there? because sooner or later 32bit will go the way of 16bit --Though it will take longer because developers don't get the same benefit by switching to 64bit that they did when switching to 32bit (that being never, ever to have to deal with
'segmented memory' again)

Yea, lots of stuff (read 'games') will be 32bit, but lots of things will be 64. Things written in pure .NET code will *become* 64bit just by upgrading.

Really it comes down to the fact that I'm long overdue for a clean install, and if I'm going to do it anyways .... why not.

running the backup now, and keying this in from my eee....