Worried about upgrading to x64

[lariz]

I'm loving 32 bit vista right now. I haven't had a single issue in 5 months and am surprised by how compatible it is with different software.
Now I think the reason it's so stable is because I turned off updating. I have 9 important updates but I don't think i'll even think about installing those since 5 months ago I had a ton of issues relating to these pesky windows security updates and the like.

Now to the problem: It's time for me to pack up this ancient 32bit OS and move on to 64 vista, but I do worry that after it completes installation it will automatically update my computer. I'm sure that one of these updates is what was causing my major problems 5 months back, but I haven't had the time to do research to find out which one it was.

The problems were:
-BSOD's everywhere
-Hard crashes
-Keyboard problems
-Monitor shutting off almost every 10 minutes
-App crashes

After these problems I reinstalled vista and manually took out about 5 of the automatic updates, as soon as I booted up I was issue free...and I've been issue free for 5 months.

I'm pretty sure the 32bit and 64bit windows updates are different so I'm contemplating whether to update or not.

 

[Thraxen]

I've not seen any difference between Windows Update on 32 and 64-bit machines. I've got two PCs at home running 64-bit Vista and neither auto-updated when installing. It asks you during the install if you want to turn on Windows Update and you can select to "decide later" (or however it is worded). Then once the install finishes you can go into the control panel and set-up Windows Update however you would like. Heck, even if it did auto-update upon installation all you would have to do is do the install with the network cable unplugged. You can still do that if you're that paranoid about it.

FWIW, I have all the updates available through Windows Update installed on my two 64-bit machines and neither one has had a single BSOD or hard crash. I've only had a couple of apps crash... one being Crysis due to a buggy nVidia driver, but Vista recovered fine without requiring a reboot. The other being some power saving utility that comes with Gigabyte boards. For some reason that app will quit from time to time. Not sure why it crashes, but it's not an important app anyway.

 

[mb]

I made the switch from 32bit to 64bit at the same time as I upgraded from 2gb to 4gb. I think that was last October or November. I haven't had any problems at all. No BSODs, no crashes, no glitches, no problems at all. I've installed all updates via Windows Update the day they've been offered.

 

[Chiropteran]

The only problem specific to 64-bit Vista that I have seen is that it becomes much harder to install hardware with unsigned drivers.