I built a system for a friend of mine recently and he needed an OS for it; since we're both college students I recommended he look into getting a student discount on Vista. Looking online he discovered the website www.journeyed.com; which offers discounts on software fi you can verify student enrollment.

He ordered Windows Vista Ultimate, it was both of our understanding that Ultimate edition came with both the 32-bit and 64-bit edition media included in the box.

When the software arrived, it was just the 32-bit edition.

My guess is this website is just selling OEM editions. If that is the case, will my friend have to shell out the full price to get access to the 64-bit edition of Vista? We have tried installing from a 64-bit DVD that I made, but his product key isn't recognized as valid for that edition.

That is correct - If you buy the Retail version of Ultimate, you receive both the 32 and 64 bit DVD's. OEM only has the one.

What I would recommend at this point is contacting the seller and exchanging the 32 bit software your friend purchased for the 64 bit.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to advise that he do--what really sucks is the website he purchased it from never mentions they're selling OEM versions. I was a bit worried that they might be (and that this exact thing would happen.)

Well I got one Vista Ultimate disk, and installed it on my computer, and got a 32-bit OS. I then went up to the folks, built them a computer, used the same disk but different CD key... lo and behold.... It was a 64-bit OS. I'm pretty sure my system fully supports 64-bit operation, so I have no idea why mine isn't now a 64-bit OS unless its the CD-key that makes the difference.

Just incase someone begs to differ and I don't actually have a 64-bit compatible system, I'm running:
Mobo - Gigabyte P965-DS3P
RAM - 2 gigs
VGA - XFX 8600GT
CPU - E6600