Tom's Guide > Forum > Windows Vista > Vista General Discussion > Some advice: don't bother with Home Premium 64 bit (yet)

Some advice: don't bother with Home Premium 64 bit (yet)

Forum Windows Vista : Vista General Discussion - Some advice: don't bother with Home Premium 64 bit (yet)

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mpjesse   02-11-2007 at 02:18:30 AM

I just installed Vista on my home built 64 bit PC and I'm already regretting it. As I type this I am in Vista and it's working. HOWEVER, i have a lot of problems:

1. I had to dig deep in google to find 64 bit drivers for my Linksys 802.11g wireless adapter (PCI). When I finally found them (NOT on Linksys's site) they were the XP 64 bit drivers. Thankfully they work in Vista though. Still, they aren't the proper drivers and linksys didn't have them on their site.

2. RAID: i have a dual raptor raid setup. I absolutely could not get Vista to install on the RAID array. Trust me, I tried everything. The problem is lack of 64 bit support for the NVRAID drivers... the drivers exist but don't work right. Anyways, I ended up having to install Vista on a 320GB single drive.

3. SATA JBOD RAID. My system has a silicon image RAID controller which I use in JBOD mode. Silicon Image doesn't not have a 64bit version of its drivers for Vista. So now I cannot access ANY of my data from Vista. Now I'm going to have to dual boot WinXP to get the data off.

4. Sound drivers: intially they didn't work. But Windows Update and installed them quickly. So problem solved.

My advice: if you have a system with any type of RAID setup OR a Linksys wireless product, steer clear of Vista 64 bit. WAIT until there are WHQL drivers for the silicon image controllers. If you're going to upgrade to Vista, get the 32 bit version and send the $10 in for the 64bit DVD. That way when 64 bit drivers are more plentiful you can easily upgrade.

Just wanted to share this with anyone who's think of going 64 bit and Vista.

Note: 32 bit Vista works fabulously... i have it on my laptop.

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briank   02-12-2007 at 07:52:48 PM
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Thanks for the insight. I just received my x64 DVD yesterday. I'll probably hold off until at least March before installing. Unless I could dual-boot without activation using the same product key I'm using for 32-bit... Just to try it out.

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mpjesse   02-13-2007 at 02:04:52 AM
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Interesting idea... If you try it, let me know how it turns out.

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briank   02-20-2007 at 08:00:56 PM
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I did successfully do the x64, x86 dual boot Vista (actually triple booting with XP on the system as well, so many drives and partitions :) ). I haven't activated either version yet though and I don't imagine I'd be able to..

When I'm ready to activate though, maybe I will try to do both. Doesn't hurt right? Activate the version I don't plan on using first and then activate the 2nd. If MS doesn't allow both, no big deal as I didn't need the first activation anyway.

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mpjesse   02-20-2007 at 08:13:47 PM
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right.

i just saw an article on anandtech that Virtual PC 2007 (M$) is available for free. Though Vista Home Premium isn't supported, it works. (i was playing with it this morning)

maybe you can use that instead of dual booting? seems like less of a hassle.

i wonder if i can get linux to work on it... hmm...

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rwpritchett   03-08-2007 at 01:51:17 AM
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mpjesse, I have a request for you:

I recently went from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Vista (after I received it in the mail) and I noticed that my 64-bit installation does not show Live Icons as the 32-bit version did. Picture files are correctly shown as thumbnails and mp3 files correctly show their album art, however documents such as pdf's, doc's, etc no longer show a live preview of the first page. I just get the application icon for the file type. I've checked the Folder Options and verified that I am set up to show thumbnails instead of icons. I've also tried all views available in the folders without any change.

Can you please confirm that the Live Icon function works on both your 32-bit Vista Laptop and 64-bit desktop installs for files such as doc, xls, pdf?

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exit2dos   03-08-2007 at 02:20:19 AM
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To get a Live Icon from an Office file in 64-bit, you have to save with a preview - provided you're using Office 2003 or greater.

File->Properties then enable Save Preview Picture.

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rwpritchett   03-08-2007 at 04:56:02 AM
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Quote :

To get a Live Icon from an Office file in 64-bit, you have to save with a preview - provided you're using Office 2003 or greater.

File->Properties then enable Save Preview Picture.


I don't have Office 2003. Are you saying that 64-bit does not have the capability unless you are running Office 2003? Under 32-bit Vista, all files had the thumbnail preview regardless of my lack of any kind of MS Office. (I'm an OpenOffice kinda guy).

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exit2dos   03-09-2007 at 01:53:40 AM
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For the moment, you need to be able to save with a preview. If MS doesn't address this issue, I'm sure OpenOffice will have an update to enable save with preview at some point.

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rwpritchett   03-09-2007 at 02:04:21 PM
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I think the problem is 64-bit Vista is unable to show live icon previews for files that are associated with 32-bit applications. Below I've attached screenshots of an example folder with different file types under 32-bit and 64-bit Vista. You can see that photos and music display thumbnails correctly but documents do not under 64-bit Vista. I did not need to do a special "save preview" for any of the documents in the screenshots.

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w319/rwpritchett/32-BitLiveIcons.jpg
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w319/rwpritchett/64-BitLiveIcons.jpg

I also tried a clean install of 64-bit Vista to check and see if there was something I did, application or driver-wise, that is preventing the live icon previews. With a clean install with only Adobe and OpenOffice installed there is no change. 64-bit Vista is UNABLE to display live icons correctly. I've contacted Microsoft support to see if I can get this solved.

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exit2dos   03-14-2007 at 01:15:37 AM
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Quote :

I think the problem is 64-bit Vista is unable to show live icon previews for files that are associated with 32-bit applications.



This is precisely why I think 64-bit needs the preview saved.


Quote :

I also tried a clean install of 64-bit Vista to check and see if there was something I did, application or driver-wise, that is preventing the live icon previews. With a clean install with only Adobe and OpenOffice installed there is no change. 64-bit Vista is UNABLE to display live icons correctly. I've contacted Microsoft support to see if I can get this solved.


Would be nice is MS does release a fix for it. I doubt they will since their software can save with preview. My guess is that MS will rely on Adobe and OpenOffice to make their own fixes.


Cute puppy BTW. :D

Reply to exit2dos
exit2dos   03-14-2007 at 01:28:19 AM
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Another reason to stay away from 64-bit Home Premium is the lack of 64-bit Flash. This means that most MCE plug-ins won't work, as well as most all of the online features. Essentially, you are pretty much paying for Home Premium, but only anle to utilize Home Basic on the 64-bit platform.

MS is working on a fix, but they've been working on this fix since the early Betas - so who knows how long until it's fixed.

More Info.

Reply to exit2dos
leexgx   03-17-2007 at 03:28:16 AM
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bit strange on the no RAID for Nvidia RAID as vista supports natively
Nvidia raid setup

did you set it to bootable when setting up the raid ?

on the topic of Nvidia Poor drivers
Nforce 15 drivers are now out but any one useing Nvidia raid after installing the Nforce 15 drivers Make sure you turn off Command Queing or you be hit with an 30% CPU Kernel use on disk access (Device man > Storage con > Nforce Sata> Untick all command que options for all of the controlers) Nvidia are starting to be lame with drivers


the live preview can have problems with files i prefer it off as in XP i had an tool to stop AVI scanning

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