When buying a notebook how do I make sure that it has Windows Vista 64 bit? How is it better than 32 bit?

Question

What special hardware would be needed to make it 64 bit? Does it depend on the processor, memory or something else? An advertisement says its running Vista 32 bit AERO experience. Does it mean that 64 bit can not be installed.

Answer 1

To run Vista 64 bit, you need a 64 bit CPU.
Not sure of many laptops that DO have this, as they are more power hungry, wso not ideal on battery power.

Contact seller/maker of laptop and ASK THEM if they offer a 64bit version ???

Answer 2

This all depends on the processor. An Intel Core 2 or an Athlon 64 can handle 64 bit instructions. In a desktop version for 64 bit you will probably also see the brand Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron.

You will probably only see this advantage where a large chunk of data needs processing, such as a photo, complex equation, or fancy graphical effect. In the 90's, 32 bits were all the address space that was needed to contain the lower level computations of everyday tasks, and this still holds true today. However, as more consumers edit gigabytes of movies and photos, they will want the extra 64 bit addressing to process the data in 64 bit chunks instead of smaller 32 bit chunks.

The reason you see Windows 64 and 32 bit is that they weren't able to fully hybridize WIndows Vista in time and therefore you will see a separate 64 bit version. Linux variations and Mac OS X Leopard all come with full 32 and 64 bit compatibility built in. Windows Vista 64 bit is known to contain incredible amounts of incompatibilities and has very little software that actually works with it, so stick with the 32 bit Vista instead.