Some vista questions

snowdog · 21 Feb 2007 at 21:55

1st question: not in any faq's here nor any threads about it when i searched...
Will Windows vista x64 work on a fat32 partiton?''
Basicly i'm considering to get vista, and dualboot it with xp, however will vista x64 work with a fat32 partition?
I want to keep my main drive fat32 to keep DOS compatibility...
Also is it possible to install vista on a different drive than C:\

2nd:
How will 64-bit performance be on my p4 630 (with EM64T) ?

A 3rd question, will vista be any good for my mums pc, she hardly does anything but occasional browsing, skype and email...
Her specs:
Wilamette 1.5ghz p4
512 mb ram
GF fx5700
40 gb HDD
Some unbranded webcam (will this thing still work on vista?)

Thanks in advance

techmonkey · 22 Feb 2007 at 01:05

1: Vista cannot be installed onto a FAT32 file system.

2: To be truthful, I can't see a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 haveing problems running Aero as there are many more graphically intensive games out there that its able to handle.

3: I'd recommend that you simply get your mum Windows XP Home. There's no point in running an x86 version of Vista on her machine if all she uses it for is a bit of browseing and typeing.

Rebelius · 22 Feb 2007 at 01:12

and it is possible to install it on a drive that isn't C:\

depending how you do it though, vista might call it C:\ but it would be different from the C:\ in XP.

techmonkey · 22 Feb 2007 at 02:32

Both Windows XP and Windows Vista will label the HDD with the operateing system on as c:/

You can always go into Computer Management and rename the drive letters to whatever you want.

snowdog · 22 Feb 2007 at 02:39

Thus I can install vista on my raid array (ntfs, M:\ atm in xp) and leave xp on c:\ ( on a wd 250 gb fat32)? But the Drive letters in vista will be different from xp?

Or you can tell me wich partition is best to install windows vista on (what would you recommend me?):

To be truthful, I can't see a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 haveing problems running Aero as there are many more graphically intensive games out there that its able to handle.

Yes i'm not worried about the cpu in general, i mean how will the p4 perform in 64 bit at all, will it be slower or faster as in 32 bit mode and is it worth it at all to go 64 bit with my specs, compatibility wont be a problem as i'm keeping xp one way or the other: (already have dualboot with 2 winxp's (one that is configured for sis chipsets and one for intel/nforce chipsets) and a dos boot, vista will just be adding a 4th boot to the boot.ini file).

techmonkey · 22 Feb 2007 at 03:49

When you boot in Vista it should initally show up as C:/ even if you choose to install a different drive. Once in Vista, it will regard your other HDDs (some with OS's on them) as simply data discs. Just install it onto any volume that's you intend to use as NTSC. Looking at your screenshot, I'd probably just install it on your 160GB volume.

As for x64 being faster than x86, I haven't really noticed that much improvement really since changeing from XP to Vista. I haven't been able to bench my system with PCMark05 as it wouldn't give a fair comparison, down to the fact that my 7950GX2 is only able to make use of one GPU and half its memory until Nvidia implement SLi into their drivers.

Rebelius · 22 Feb 2007 at 09:08

techmonkey said:
When you boot in Vista it should initally show up as C:/ even if you choose to install a different drive.

That's only true if you do a clean install by booting from the DVD. If you put the DVD in when you're in XP and select the partition that's called M:\ in XP then vista will call it M:\ too. I did it and had vista calling it's own drive F:\ which was really annoying.