>>I am interested to hear opinions about going with 64 bit Win 7 OS in general. Not just as it relates to VFP, but as an overall workstation. I'm sure we all use lots of software on our machines these days besides just VFP, so I want to look beyond just that detail. I am attracted to a 64 bit OS (I guess I am. Shouldn't it be better? It sure sounds cool, but I have no clue).
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>>I do not want to go down some path where I spend more time maintaining the machine (drivers, and work-arounds to make my apps work) than it's worth, just to say I am using a 64 bit OS.
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>>I have a nice modern Dell XPS 690 with a Dual Core 3.0 Ghz and 4GB of ram, and I would plan to do a complete new install on an empty hard drive. It's hard to complain about the performance of XP SP3 as it is right now, so I'm not sure I'm ready for the 64-bit plunge if it gets too involved. On the other hand, I don't want to get left behind in the world of my knowledge and experience in this area if it is going to be something that becomes more mainstream.
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>If you haven't done so, get your hands on a copy of Windows 7 - 64bit RC and get a key from the Microsoft web-site and try it out for a few weeks and see how it goes. If you can't get a copy, then email me and I will send you a copy......
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>I have used Vista 64 bit (Home Premium) on 4 gigs and it has worked fantastic.....


I've installed WIn 7 RC on a VM in my XP machine. But, it's the 32 bit version running in a virtual environment. So I've used the OS, but now way to know any pain points of the 64 bit version until I install it on the bare metal. That will pretty much commit me to doing it all the way. There's no going back.

Will Win7 offer to create a boot manager if I install it to the existing XP machine? That would allow me to keep my XP machine alive, but it would cause the HD to get partitioned which would be a pain to deal with from now on. I assume after the first few weeks, I'll be in Win7 happy land and never look back, but then my HD would be all messed up with that old XP parition laying around.