How to go from Vista Premium 64 to 32?

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Jacob

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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?
 
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?
 
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?
 
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?

>
 
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?
 
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?
 
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.
 
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