>I just went through the "32 vs 64 bit issue" for my Dell laptop. Most of the advice I got said that if I don't have at least 4 Gig RAM, that the machine may actually be slower. Some even said I shouldn't waste time on 64 bit unless I had at least 8 GB RAM.
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I've heard and read things that go either way - but generally what I hear is that the OS is noticably faster when running 64Bit given an equal amount of RAM.

My only experience with 64Bit Windows is with Server2003 64Bit running SQL2005 64Bit. In a couple of these cases, I took existing server hardware running 32Bit windows and SQL and rebuilt using 64Bit Windows and SQL - in those cases the effect was very apparent - near doubling of overall database speed (I had to do benchmarks using our database on both and compare them for mgmt). We had issues getting A/V and backup software that would work on the 64Bit O/S, but that was it.

One way or another I guess it isn't going to happen on my laptop. I do have 2GB RAM (max on this unit) which is supposed to be sufficient, but I have no idea if I could get everything working.

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>>Yes of course. I was hoping not to do that yet because it would take me days at least to reinstall everything and get the machine back to some sense of normalcy.
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>>My intent was to do a reinstall sometime in the fall with the 64bit version (I wanted to do Vista 64bit since Vista came out but never got clear answers on hardware or software compatibility). Of course, my loathing of Vista has increased to the point that it is coming off this machine (period).
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>>I have attempted to find information from Dell or Microsoft re: hardware compatibility for my Dell E1705 (9400) laptop running 64bit Windows 7 and find nothing but a black hole. I'm not seeing much of anything out of dell re: win 7 except upgrade promises if you purchase certain new machines.
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>>If I have to reinstall I need to know I will be able to use my hardware w/o spending hours or days hunting for solutions with a crippled machine. XP is looking like the answer (as it has been for years).