Vista 64 bit, Backward Compatability

[Dr J]

Hello everyone!

I'm thinking of purchasing a new laptop and Best Buy has a fantastic deal on the following:

http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/8782089/reviews.htm

The system uses the 64 bit version of Vista and I'm just not sure how backward compatible it will be with Windows XP. I have two external hard drives, both formatted in NTFS and am wondering if I'd be able to share MS Word documents between the two systems (old, XP Pro, SP2) and/or JPG's & digital photos?

Also, I have a copy of Adobe Photoshop. Would I be able to run this program on this laptop? If not, could I transfer digital photos from the laptop, to my desktop, where I'd be able to manipulate them within Photoshop?

I'd just like to be informed before I take the plunge!

Any and all information appreciated.

Thanks,

John

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

I have CS3 and it works just fine with Vista. I'd imagine 7~CS2 should work just as well.

 

[Dr J]

Thank you, Rhonda !

Yes, it's CS2 that I have, not 3.

So, it is backward compaitible with 32 bit programs, in general?

thanks,

John

 

[Scotteq]

Vista 64 includes the libraries needed to run 32 bit code.

On the negative side, that means the OS is 'translating' 32 bit commands and therefore there is some overhead involved in doing that. On the positive side, common commands of less than 32 bits can be/are grouped together and run as pairs - (the rule is there has to be enough space left over in a 64 bit string to add the necessary tags to differentiate the two).

In practice: I noticed little/no difference in general performance going from 32 bit Vista to 64 bit, except that the X64 version is quicker/snappier in and of itself. Vista 64 has happily run everything I've decided to throw at it. And as as matter of fact, it seems to run better the more I beat up on it. The only ways most people would ever figure out the difference is that I have two versions of Internet Exploder instead of one, and they could look in the control panel to see which OS version.

A couple caveats: If you have old software that includes 16 bit code (*ahem* - or installer...), it will NOT run at all. The ability to run 16 bit code has been removed entirely. The other thing you would probably run into is there is no 64 bit version of Flash. So you cannot effectively browse sites containing Flash code from a 64 bit browser. Having said that, 32 bit flash happily runs in a 32 bit Browser which happily runs on Vista 64. Personally, I'm a fan of Firefox...

 

[Dr J]

Scotteq,

thanks for the excellent response. In that case, I'm getting the HP SE.

Thank you for this!

John

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: Scotteq
Vista 64 includes the libraries needed to run 32 bit code.

On the negative side, that means the OS is 'translating' 32 bit commands and therefore there is some overhead involved in doing that. On the positive side, common commands of less than 32 bits can be/are grouped together and run as pairs - (the rule is there has to be enough space left over in a 64 bit string to add the necessary tags to differentiate the two).

In practice: I noticed little/no difference in general performance going from 32 bit Vista to 64 bit, except that the X64 version is quicker/snappier in and of itself. Vista 64 has happily run everything I've decided to throw at it. And as as matter of fact, it seems to run better the more I beat up on it. The only ways most people would ever figure out the difference is that I have two versions of Internet Exploder instead of one, and they could look in the control panel to see which OS version.

A couple caveats: If you have old software that includes 16 bit code (*ahem* - or installer...), it will NOT run at all. The ability to run 16 bit code has been removed entirely. The other thing you would probably run into is there is no 64 bit version of Flash. So you cannot effectively browse sites containing Flash code from a 64 bit browser. Having said that, 32 bit flash happily runs in a 32 bit Browser which happily runs on Vista 64. Personally, I'm a fan of Firefox...

And, frankly, it's only a matter of time before Adobe releases an x64 version, at which point I'll happily cruise along using IE x64.

 

[Dr J]

Hi,

I was thinking the same thing!

John