Upgrading 32bit vista to 64bit Win7?

hi guys

first of all i apologuise because i'm sure that like most forums you get nubs like me asking individual questions probably asked elsewhere - but i'm short on time atm, and dont wanna make a mistake!

i currently have 32bit vista, which i use for all the things students do (word processing, watching video, gaming - like wow, and total war:empire ect)

i also have 4gb of ram installed, however, i currently only get the benefit of 3gb as i am on 32bit OS.

so my question is will 64bit Win 7 be good for me? and if so - can i install over the top/upgrade from the 32bit vista.

(i was looking to purchase the win7 home premium from http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/ )

thanks for any help you guys can throw on the subject

Hi nahtay

As you intend going 64bit and your currently running 32bit do make sure your system can run 64bit.

As far as I am aware, you cannot upgrade Vista 32 to 7 x64. They're not compatible. You'd need to do a fresh install.

What CPU do you have?

Hi nahtay

As Veedaz pointed out your processor may not be 64Bit capable. If you are not sure whether you have a 64Bit capable CPU. You can use CPU-Z 1.52 and look for "EM64T" under the line (CPU EXT : MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 EM64T)

Take a look at this chart. As Thrax pointed out, I think you will see a clean install will be needed when changing from 32Bit to 64Bit Operating System.

Upgrading your PC to Windows 7

hey

thanks for the replies

so i ran the cpu-z thing -> under "instructions" it does have EM64T at the end of the list like you posted.

so i assume that my cpu can handle 64bit, and that all i need to do is do a clean install (so make sure i have an external back up of all files i want to keep right?

also since i've never installed an OS before, do i need to uninstall the original vista when i come to do this upgrade? (i've only ever had to reset vista back to default install due to viruses ect)

thanks

You will be able to run the 64bit version of Windows 7, but your "speed" increase may not be as significant as you believe ... you will note an increased efficiency in the way that some programs function though...