dell laptop + windows vista- am i stupid or dell?

enigma27 · 20 Mar 2009 at 20:57

Hi all.

just got a dell laptop for the missus and it has vista home premium 32bit.

Now dell gave us a free upgrade to 4gig of ram but i thought 32bit vista could only use 3gig of the 4?

if thats the case isnt the free upgrade pretty useless?

also is there any easy way to upgrade to the 64bit version?

GeForce · 20 Mar 2009 at 21:30

32-bit OSes can use only 4Gb of total physical memory, including graphics etc. So you'll only see 3.2-3.5Gb and yes, as such, you're wasting memory.

As I understand it, the OEM license only entitles you to use one version (x86 or x64) of the software, whereas a retail license can be used for either. However I also remember a system by which a consumer could get an x64 version of their software from MS under their x86 license. So I'm not entirely sure how this works.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, an upgrade is not possible as far as I know - a full reinstall is the only way.

enigma27 · 20 Mar 2009 at 21:50

thanks for the advice.

would i see much improvement using 64bit?

GeForce · 20 Mar 2009 at 22:28

For most general everyday computing tasks, probably not. For apps that involve the processor doing a lot of number crunching I would say a difference would appear, but how noticeable it would be is debateable.

However if you have 4Gb RAM, it does seem a bit of a waste sticking an x86 OS on it.

I would suggest, in the first instance, contacting Dell. Some people have had success in swapping their x86 copy for an x64 one. As I said before, MS's licensing terms seem to be a bit of a grey area in regards to this issue. However, phone them, don't email, and expect to be requested to pay shipping cost.