lost with available windows OS !!!

[vblanche]

I'm planning on building a new machine (Q6600-based) this autumn...should I go for XP 32-bit, 64-bit, vista? and why?

thanks for your help.

[YukonTrooper]

Kinda depends what your doing. If your gaming then don't even think about 64-bit. It will give you compatibility and driver issues up the you know what. The 64-bit architecture performs faster in some instances, especially if your a programmer or you do other types of compiling. In some games you might see benefits but in other games you would have to run in 32-bit compatibility mode which is not as good as native 32-bit mode.

Basically you'd know if you needed 64-bit or not. Go with 32-bit so you know you won't run into issues that will give you major headaches.

[rogueagent6]

If your gaming then don't even think about 64-bit.

Got no problems gaming on WinXP 64 here... :rolleyes:

Do some research, there is an entire sticky dedicated to WinXP 64 in this same forum.

[eXceededgoku]

Vista x64 of course :D, only real OS in that list that properly uses that quad

[vblanche]

Vista x64 of course :D, only real OS in that list that properly uses that quad why?:)

[Frostbyte]

Create two partitions. Load XP on one, and then load Vista x64 on the other. you can then edit the boot sequence to default to XP and dink around in Vista 64 as you desire.

Right now XP is still top dog when it comes to gaming performance. There are few apps that take advantage of multicore processing. But, I have said this many times before, I doubt you will ever see another 32 bit version of the OS after Vista. (Yes, SPs will still come out, but no truly new version.")

64 bit is by far a more secure build, due to many factors. We are in that painful stage of migration from 32 bit to 64, but this is certainly not the first time to have gon through that. Remember going from DOS to Windows for Workgroups, and then to Windows 2000? Same pains.

Bottom line, dual booting is easy and gives you the best of both worlds. With HDs as cheap as they are now, dropping $80 for a half terabyte drive in addition to what you have will give you the freedom to run both.

[rogueagent6]

Remember going from DOS to Windows for Workgroups, and then to Windows 2000? Same pains.

Actually I think Windows 95 came before Win2k. ;)

[{GOD}Raptor22]

Actually I think Windows 95 came before Win2k. ;)

I went from Mac OS8.1 to Win98SE to Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. :p:

[YukonTrooper]

Got no problems gaming on WinXP 64 here... :rolleyes:

Do some research, there is an entire sticky dedicated to WinXP 64 in this same forum.
Depending on the game though. Some games heave chunks when run with 64-bit.

[EniGmA1987]

Windows XP 64-bit works fine for almost everything. I have only found 2 games in 2 years of running it that havent worked perfectly fine and just as well as regular Windows, and those games were cheap games anyway. I also did not have any driver problems except with printers, although I have heard that many of the cheaper PCI wireless cards dont hvae drivers either. So just do some research to see if your printer and/or wireless PCI card has drivers and if those do then everything else should work fine. Even creative has 64-bit XP drivers for a lot of their stuff. You dont have to specifically run stuff in 32-bit compatibility for them to work if they are 32-bit apps. It works automatically.

[YukonTrooper]

hhmmmm... Well it seems like they must have fixed a lot of issues with 64-bit since when I used it. I remember my system would throw me the middle finger constantly when trying to accomplish different things within the OS. I purchased it when it almost first came out though so what can I expect. I went back to 32-bit within weeks. Maybe I should giv'r another go. Would make more sense to just get Vista though and mess around with it so I know how it operates for when I make the permanent switch.

[vblanche]

so, which size should be my primary HDD (if I'm planning on dual booting)?

[Frostbyte]

Actually I think Windows 95 came before Win2k. ;)

lol...yep (you left out Millenium, btw! Actually, I was really hitting upon MS Windows versions that were huge paradigm shifts. Probably should have said NT rather than Win2K, but the point is that this is familiar territory after being around IT a while.


Anyway, Dual boot if you can, and x64 is fun and fine. :)

[RPGWiZaRD]

Windows Server 2003 SP2 is my new gaming OS, performs slightly better than Win XP so. xD

Between 32bit XP and 64bit Vista I'd definitely go for XP for now.

[lawrywild]

Vista x64 :)

[zanzabar]

i hope that no1 recamended xp 32 bit for a quad core xp pro 32 allows for 2 cores on one chip or 2 single core chips, while vista 32 will allow 4 cores total, xp pro 64 will alow 2 4 core cpus adn vista be/ulti 64 will alow 32 cores total and with sp1 microsoft is claiming 48-64 cores

[Nick04263]

i hope that no1 recamended xp 32 bit for a quad core xp pro 32 allows for 2 cores on one chip or 2 single core chips, while vista 32 will allow 4 cores total, xp pro 64 will alow 2 4 core cpus adn vista be/ulti 64 will alow 32 cores total and with sp1 microsoft is claiming 48-64 cores

Well, you let me know when that 64 core chip or chips becomes available. :)
The again, who knows when the OS will be able to utilize that many cores.