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Why is Dell afraid of 64bit Vista?

C

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
Does anyone know why 64bit Vista versions seem to be completely unavailable from Dell? With 4GB memory configurations becoming common, and most newer boards supporting 8GB or more, it seems like they are going to lose a lot of customers who want to run a 64bit OS on supported hardware.

I'm fully aware that you can easily install 64bit Vista onto a Dell and it'll work fine for the most part, but the fact remains that Dell's support site doesn't even list 64bit Vista drivers, and for a large company I'm sure it's less of a headache to just buy an HP with official 64bit support.

So, why is Dell trying to shoot themselves in the foot?
 
Because they know granny will whip out her 15 year old handheld Logitech black and white OCR scanner and wonder why her grandkids' copy of Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego won't install as soon as she gets it out of the packaging and turned on.
 
Originally posted by: nerp
Because they know granny will whip out her 15 year old handheld Logitech black and white OCR scanner and wonder why her grandkids' copy of Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego won't install as soon as she gets it out of the packaging and turned on.
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And that has what to do with 64bit Vista? Dell offers and supports some flavors of Linux, so obviously your argument is incorrect.
 
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Originally posted by: nerp
Because they know granny will whip out her 15 year old handheld Logitech black and white OCR scanner and wonder why her grandkids' copy of Where in Europe is Carmen Sandiego won't install as soon as she gets it out of the packaging and turned on.
Click to expand...

And that has what to do with 64bit Vista? Dell offers and supports some flavors of Linux, so obviously your argument is incorrect.
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I agree with his reasoning entirely.

Why do you think they don't offer 64-Bit?
 
Originally posted by: boomerang
I agree with his reasoning entirely.

Why do you think they don't offer 64-Bit?
Click to expand...

There is just not a big demand for it yet. Mainly enthusiast are running 64 bit Vista and they make up a very small percentage of Dell's customer base. If you look in the business section of Dell, they sell work stations and servers with a 64 bit operating system installed.
 
Dell caters to the lowest common denominator. The majority of their home use customers don't even know the difference between 32 and 64 bit Vista.

Many of their server solutions come with 64 bit OS options though, from both Windows and Linux.
 
Originally posted by: Bateluer
Dell caters to the lowest common denominator. The majority of their home use customers don't even know the difference between 32 and 64 bit Vista.

Many of their server solutions come with 64 bit OS options though, from both Windows and Linux.
Click to expand...

They cater to everyone. Do you think the precision is a low end budget machine for home users? No, it's considered a workstation. You can spec one out easily in the $5k+ range with dual quad core Xeon processors, yet you can't even spec it with 8GB of RAM because Dell refuses to sell 64bit Vista.

And yes, they offer 64bit Server OS, which makes it all the more puzzling as to why they refuse to sell 64bit Vista.


Even companies like Gateway will sell you a computer preloaded with 64bit vista, and Gateway certainly isn't going for anything more than the same home users Dell is going after.



What is my theory? I don't think there is any good reason for Dell to refuse to sell or support 64bit Vista. The only thing I can think of is that it's some petty disagreement between Dell and Microsoft such that Dell decided to refuse to sell vista 64.


Originally posted by: soonerproud
If you look in the business section of Dell, they sell work stations and servers with a 64 bit operating system installed.
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Servers, yes. Because they offer Windows Server 2003 64bit, and Server 2008. Workstations? No. Not unless it's a workstation/server with a server OS installed- even the precision line of workstations are only available with Vista32. It's rather laughable if you go down the specs- you can spec out top of the line CPUs, video, spec out a massive RAID of the latest hard drives, but you are still limited to 4GB of RAM because Dell is being stubborn.
 
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
And that has what to do with 64bit Vista? Dell offers and supports some flavors of Linux, so obviously your argument is incorrect.
Click to expand...
When Dell started doing this, they were only offering hardware support...no software support...for Linux. I don't know what they are doing now.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Originally posted by: Chiropteran
And that has what to do with 64bit Vista? Dell offers and supports some flavors of Linux, so obviously your argument is incorrect.
Click to expand...
When Dell started doing this, they were only offering hardware support...no software support...for Linux. I don't know what they are doing now.
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Why do you think software support for vista64 would be so expensive? It runs the exact same as 32bit Vista, with a couple limitations: no unsigned drivers, no 16bit software.

Vista is Vista, the support differences between 32bit and 64bit are minuscule.

Take a look at HP, you can get 64bit Vista on any of their system, even the low end home models. Gateway, much the same. With 32bit being basically capped around 3GB, 64bit OSes are coming for all, like it or not. I'm just really puzzled why Dell doesn't even offer 64bit as an option for it's high-end workstations.
 
Originally posted by: soonerproud
Originally posted by: boomerang
I agree with his reasoning entirely.

Why do you think they don't offer 64-Bit?
Click to expand...

There is just not a big demand for it yet. Mainly enthusiast are running 64 bit Vista and they make up a very small percentage of Dell's customer base. If you look in the business section of Dell, they sell work stations and servers with a 64 bit operating system installed.
Click to expand...

Nope you only get to use ~3.5 gb of ram on that spanking brand new 8 cores of Xeon processing power workstation.

Maybe they do not offer 64 bit because of the lack of software. I know there are 64 bit CAD programs. And I run photoshop with 8 gbytes of ram despite photoshop being 32 bit... but I will tell you my system is more responsive as a whole.

Dell does not even offer more than 4 gb on their workstations.

These workstations are in the business section and are expensive so I do not think there would be an issue with the PC not running Where in the word is Carmen San Diego.

 
I think it is kind of odd they havent offered it yet. But you can get XP64 which imo is a bastard child of an OS compared to Vista 64.
 
Only Dell knows why it doesn't offer 64-bit Vista. The (apparent) obvious answer is that Dell believes its added support costs will be higher than added sales from offering 64-bit Vista. Dell is VERY good about providing drivers support for its PCs, and it'd have to have 64-bit drivers for every single device on every single model before it freely offers 64-bit Vista.

According to this Dell Forum page Dell now offers 64-bit Vista DVDs to some purchasers, with the caveat the Dell doesn't provide complete 64-bit drivers for all platforms.

From a Dell representative:

"I will go ahead and validate a couple of facts.

1) Per Dell policy, if you purchased 32 bit Vista of any version, you are entitled to the 64 bit DVD of the same version upon request, with the caveat that Dell does not provide complete 64 bit driver support for all platforms. XP 32-to-64 bit is excluded from this policy. Consumer (aka Home and Home Office) purchases are not eligible for the 64 bit DVD as of June 3. This is subject to change.

2) For customers in the U.S. region, your best bet to get the DVD is from tech support. It will help if you can use a little Dell lingo to point them in the right direction. If the agent seems unaware of the policy, or unwilling to dispatch the DVD, you might try quoting the Dell policy document something like this: "I know I am entitled to this DVD. If you would kindly check DSN policy document ID 158098, 5th bullet under Policy, first sub-bullet."

3) This is supposed to be a global policy, but I can not say for certain it applies in all regions, and agents in other regions may not be able to access the same internal document using the same document ID.

According to some other Dell Forum posts, the free 64-bit DVD will be sent to Dell Small, Medium, and Large Business customers who have Vista Business or Vista Ultimate 32-bit factory installations.
 
Originally posted by: Spicedaddy
but the fact remains that Dell's support site doesn't even list 64bit Vista drivers,
Click to expand...

I remember downloading Vista x64 drivers form support.dell.com for my printer...
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Maybe for peripherals. Systems don't even show Vista64 as a choice.
 
The truth is, as stated, 99.999% of their target audience don't know the difference between 32- and 64-bit to begin with, and don't care. But they will care if they plug in an ancient device (like an old scanner) and there's no 64-bit driver available and cannot use it. This translates in to higher support costs and obviously the increased sales from the few who did want 64-bit weren't enough to compensate for the high cost of the former group.
 
Im confused, I got my box from Dell with V64 over a year ago. The option was only available on >4gig machines (this one has 32gig) so Vista64 was the default OS choice.
 
Last weekend I was looking through the Sunday paper add inserts. Always check out the prices of HDTVs at the big box stores. Oddly just about all of them are offering first tier comps with Vista 64 all of a sudden. 6GBs of ram is a selling point to those who may not why but it sounds good. I'm sure Dell will follow soon. This is business and it will be their turn to use the brain.
 
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
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Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
 
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
Click to expand...

Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
Click to expand...

Do a google search, troll.
 
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
Click to expand...

Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
Click to expand...

Do a google search, troll.
Click to expand...

Motion for ban. I'm running Vista 64 on several machines without any issues. You've yet to post any concrete details.

Go away before a mod does it for you.
 
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
Click to expand...

Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
Click to expand...

Do a google search, troll.
Click to expand...

Motion for ban. I'm running Vista 64 on several machines without any issues. You've yet to post any concrete details.

Go away before a mod does it for you.
Click to expand...

Again, just run a Google search! Ban me? For just posting the truth? Google on "Windows Vista bugs" and learn, creep.
 
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
Click to expand...

Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
Click to expand...

Do a google search, troll.
Click to expand...

Motion for ban. I'm running Vista 64 on several machines without any issues. You've yet to post any concrete details.

Go away before a mod does it for you.
Click to expand...

Again, just run a Google search! Ban me? For just posting the truth? Google on "Windows Vista bugs" and learn, creep.
Click to expand...

The burden of proof is not on me. You are the one claiming so many problems, yet I don't see you mentioning anything specific. I am not about to sit through pages and pages of people just like you claiming there are bugs without any factual proof.

 
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Originally posted by: Crusty
Originally posted by: BuncoBaggins
Maybe because it's a crappy, buggy OS?
Click to expand...

Or maybe you are full of misinformation and anti-ms bullshit. Post reasons, faults, bugs, that YOU have experienced and maybe someone will take your troll post seriously.

Until then, stay out.
Click to expand...

Do a google search, troll.
Click to expand...

Motion for ban. I'm running Vista 64 on several machines without any issues. You've yet to post any concrete details.

Go away before a mod does it for you.
Click to expand...

Again, just run a Google search! Ban me? For just posting the truth? Google on "Windows Vista bugs" and learn, creep.
Click to expand...


I have Vista 64 and Its been amazing, done what I needed to.

I convinced my boss to roll it out at work, I dont care for FUD and articles written by ppl who hail themselves as experts who jump on a bang wagon when bashing.

If you have nothing constructive to say ( I?d let you off on ?constructive criticisms? but you?re is just plane bashing) then shut up frankly.

A lot of ppl think its cool to bash MS?It was IBM/MS that paved the way for an open environment so ppl like me and may others on this forums could experience he joys of building our own systems, writing are own applications , I get sick of this anti MS attitude.

I couldn?t do my job as an IT admin if it wasn?t for MS..I use a few ubuntu boxes and that?s it.

Go buy an apple and be cool and unique?do one.


 
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