Upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit

[540media]

excuse my stupidity here but I was wondering if someone could answer this question for me as I confused.

I'm looking at upgrading from xp pro to vista x64 and dont really know the best upgrade path. This upgrade is for my business so really I want to stick to the Retail versions rather than the OEM one.

If I upgrade from xp to vista 32-bit can I then upgrade to the 64-bit from there?
Also how much does it cost to go from 32-bit to 64-bit... I was looking on M$ site and it says something about a nominal fee, but I cant see anywhere how much this fee.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[540media]

Works out at just under £7.00,are you buying a full retail version of vista or the retail upgrade version?

it will be the retail upgrade version

best upgrade path will be XP 32 bit to Vista 64bit straight out. your'll be wasting money buying 32bit versions of the OS if you intend to go to 64bit straight away.
As long as your processors are 64bit and you know all your needed software will run in 64bit and hardware has good 64bit drivers etc

and please make many many backup's of your business data

I've not seen an retail version upgrade of the 64-bit version tho... I've seen plenty of OEM 64-bit.

And dont worry everything that we've got is backed up a minimum of 3 times anyway

in my opinion don't go there

but we need to break the 4gb limitation of the 32-bit os's... we're looking at 8gb minimum

 

[540media]

yes, as the work that we do is very processors and ram intensive.. we want to crack up the ram big time

 

[540media]

Hey 540media, if you purchase Windows Vista Business Retail, then as you already know that you will only get the 32-bit media in the actual box and you will have to get Microsoft to ship you the 64-bit media. More information about this can be found here.

If you install Windows Vista 32-bit, when you receive the 64-bit disc, you wont simply be able to "Upgrade", you will have to do a clean installation.

yeah I know that I wont be able to do an "upgrade". we are going to go and do a clean install on all our systems.

I hate upgrades (hate all the crap that gets left behind).. clean installs is the way to go.