Vista 32/64 bit - External HD

[slikz21]

I'm just about to order my MB Pro and plan on putting Vista on it as well (yes I know, plz don't hurt me ). Even though I only have 2MB of RAM right now, would it be better to go with Vista 64-bit for future proof, and is there any advantage to using 64-bit besides total RAM available. I don't want to buy XP, install it, then sometime down the road buy Vista and install again.

I plan on getting an external HD for backup. Can I backup from both OSX Tiger as well as Vista?

 

[sotl]

don't do it. Apple doesn't offer 64 bit drivers yet and probably won't until Leopard comes out. I put the 64 bit Vista on my macbook pro and had to go hunt for drivers(not so easy) and certain apple specific hardware I could not find drivers for which meant no keyboard backlight, no dimming of the screen, no isight, no "fn" controls, etc.

Stick with 32-bit. You'll be happier... I know I am. Besides, unless you plan on working with HD images you most likely won't need it.

As for backing up to a hard drive, you can. It just needs to be FAT32 format which it will most likely be out of the box. In my case I wanted to store files larger than FAT32 allows so I formatted my external drive as HFS(Mac format) and purchased MacDrive 7 so I could access both my Mac partition and external drive from within Vista.

 

[nikhsub1]

don't do it. Apple doesn't offer 64 bit drivers yet and probably won't until Leopard comes out. I put the 64 bit Vista on my macbook pro and had to go hunt for drivers(not so easy) and certain apple specific hardware I could not find drivers for which meant no keyboard backlight, no dimming of the screen, no isight, no "fn" controls, etc.

Stick with 32-bit. You'll be happier... I know I am. Besides, unless you plan on working with HD images you most likely won't need it.

Listen to the man, he is 110% correct. I tried 64 bit vista - can you say ROYAL PITA? 32 bit installs and runs excellent! Apple did a very good job with the drivers - when they have 64 bit drivers then I will slap vista 64 bit on there, for now definitely stick with 32 bit.

 

[DoFoT9]

yeap trust these 2 guys! if you want to install v***a onto the external drive DONT!! cauz it wont work, v***a is like that.. i donno why they did that, pisses me off!!! neways, itl be fine

 

[CapitalQ]

yeap trust these 2 guys! if you want to install v***a onto the external drive DONT!! cauz it wont work, v***a is like that.. i donno why they did that, pisses me off!!! neways, itl be fine

Huh? He was asking about whether he should install 64-bit Windows Vista, not about installing operating systems on an external hard drive, which I'm pretty sure Boot Camp doesn't allow.

 

[DoFoT9]

Huh? He was asking about whether he should install 64-bit Windows Vista, not about installing operating systems on an external hard drive, which I'm pretty sure Boot Camp doesn't allow.

i know, i was just making sure that he wasnt thinking of it just incase.... i thout xp you could install on external harddrives...but not on vista??