How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

[Guest Jacob]

I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM 64

down to 32?

[Guest Jacob]

RE: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

One more question...I am a university student and can purchase a Vista

Ultimate 32 upgrade disk. I know that people usually use it to upgrade from

XP but can I use this upgrade disk to go from Premium 64 to Ultimate 32?

 

"Jacob" wrote:

> I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

> OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

> won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

> product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM 64

> down to 32?

[Guest Theo]

Re: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

Can you use Virtual PC or VMware to run your application?

 

 

Jacob wrote:

> I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

> OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

> won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

> product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM 64

> down to 32?

[Guest Jacob]

Re: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

I have a Sony High Def. camcorder that records in the AVCHD format. The

camcorder software is not compatible with 64 but will work in 32. This is my

only incompatibility issue. Would Virtual PC or VMware be viable options?

What are my other options? Any thoughts?

 

"Theo" wrote:

> Can you use Virtual PC or VMware to run your application?

>

>

> Jacob wrote:

> > I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

> > OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

> > won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

> > product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM 64

> > down to 32?

>

[Guest Theo]

Re: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

Virtual PC does not support USB interface, but VMware

workstation does.

 

Another option might be 3rd party software that runs on x64.

 

There's several mentioned at Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD

 

And I would suspect there are more.

 

 

 

Jacob wrote:

> I have a Sony High Def. camcorder that records in the AVCHD format. The

> camcorder software is not compatible with 64 but will work in 32. This is my

> only incompatibility issue. Would Virtual PC or VMware be viable options?

> What are my other options? Any thoughts?

>

> "Theo" wrote:

>

>> Can you use Virtual PC or VMware to run your application?

>>

>>

>> Jacob wrote:

>>> I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

>>> OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

>>> won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

>>> product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM 64

>>> down to 32?

[Guest Colin Barnhorst]

Re: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

Be sure you have all the x86 drivers and utilities for your computer saved

on a cd before you start. Save your data for restoration later. You will

have to reinstall your apps.

 

You need to do a clean install of Vista to migrate between x64 and x86. I

have tried running x86 Vista Setup from an x64 desktop and, while it works,

it does not work as expected. It is quite a different migration than going

from x86 to x64 so I do not recommend that method. You can use an upgrade

product key to make the migration you want to do but you need to use a

workaround as follows:

 

1. Boot with the x86 dvd and click Install Now. Do not enter a product key

but choose any edition to be installed. Be sure to uncheck the "Activate

when I get online" box. Use the Disk Tools to delete the current OS

partition (with x64 on it). Create a new partition in its place accepting

the defaults. Install Windows.

 

2. Restart the computer and when the desktop finishes loading insert the

dvd in the drive. Click Install Now when the splash screen appears. Enter

your product key. Do a custom install of Windows. You will have

windows.old folders after this installation which you can then delete (take

ownership of the folders before trying to delete them).

 

When you boot a computer with the x86 dvd and enter a upgrade edition

product key the x86 Setup tells you to restart the computer and run Setup

from the existing Windows. This is exactly what you do NOT want to do since

the Disk Tools are not available when you start from existing Windows and

you cannot do a clean install.

 

Step 1 gets around this by installing an x86 edition of Windows but without

having to do it from within existing Windows. The only problem with this is

that Setup installs a full edition when no PK is entered and you have an

upgrade edition product key.

 

The idea here is to first get rid of the 64bit version entirely using the

Disk Tools because a simple custom install does not work correctly when

installing x86 on x64. Setup is supposed to rollup the old Windows files

and folders but when going from x64 to x86 it does not replace the folder

structure of the x64 OS like it should. You wind up with an x86 system with

an x64 folder structure.

 

Since you cannot enter your upgrade edition PK once a full edition is

installed (only a full edition PK will be accepted after the fact) you have

to reinstall using the upgrade edition PK. Step 2 allows you to run Setup

with the upgrade edition PK since this time there is a version of Windows

already installed and performing a custom install from existing Windows

(which is now x86) does not produce a faulty folder structure.

 

 

"Jacob" <Jacob@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:6CF89700-4310-4D8C-911F-6B94C0E683D6@microsoft.com...

>I just ordered a quad core desktop and I opted for the Vista Premium 64-bit

> OS. After doing some reading I found that an important piece of software

> won't work on 64. Is there any way that I can go down to 32? will my 64

> product key work for 32 as well? What is the best way to go from my OEM

> 64

> down to 32?

[Guest nospam]

Re: How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

 

The easiest way is subtract 32 from 64 (i.e. 64-32=32). Hope this helps.