Quote:
Originally Posted by AlanG
Ah cheers, so the troubles of the work PC of the person sat next to me are imaginary ok thanks for clarifying that, I'll let him know. For example, some inkjet printers claim to have 64bit drivers but they don't actually work. High end production printers, also don't have good driver support (although I doubt the OP will be using them at home). Loads of software still runs in 32bit mode, rather than 64 and when versions do come out its generally months after the 32bit version.
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There'll be no problem finding working drivers for anything in the spec he posted whatsoever, the 32-bit versions of programs will run fine on vista 64 and there are quite a few 64-bit native things around too. If he wants 4GB Ram, there's no point getting a 32-bit OS that can only use 3/4 or so of what he has.
Driver support isn't "absolutely appalling" - granted, there are some old bits of hardware that don't have drivers available (and perhaps high end commercial printers, but I doubt he'll be using them)
I don't see any reason for sticking with a 32-bit OS if he wants lots of ram - more and more 64-bit native software is coming out and the 32-bit stuff all runs fine on 64-bit vista, so why stick with 32 if he's going to want to use all that ram at some point in the life of that computer?