Upgrade clarification

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Guest

Hi, I would really be very thankful if someone could explain this in a little
more detail.

I am 16 and well, thrilled to be part of this beta. (even though its easy
to get I am pretty excited to know enough to be able to do this) However, I
downloaded pre-rc1 "just to try it" and it was so good I decided that I
should use it for everything. heh. But now that RC1 and RC2 are out (I have
isos for x64 and x86 for them both downloaded), I was wondering what to do.

I want to upgrade to RC1 or RC2 (preferably RC2), but I am worried that I
will lose my programs or something, seeing as thats what Ive always thought a
clean install to be. I have 80 GB space left on the drive, with 3 instances
of windows on here (2 XP and the vista beta - so the XP can be deleted for
space basically), and as I just said I would like to be able to "upgrade" in
the sense that I click a few buttons, and I have the updated version of
Vista.

Is this possible, or does my rambling not make any sense? Thanks for your
help!

P.S. I replied to a previous topic earlier with the same subject, but it
appears that these message boards don't act like a normal forums with
questions with the newest replies appearing at the beginning of the list.
Also, in the one I replied to, I kept getting an error that it was not being
recieved. I tried 3 times, it told me it was not recieved 3 times, yet 5
minutes later I had a tripple post. So sorry about that if you come across
it!
 
You should be able to 'upgrade' from Pre-RC1 to RC2.
However, to be safe, you should back up any data you don't
want to lose before you try the upgrade path. I upgraded
from RC1 build 5728 to RC2 build 5244 without any problems.
It does seem to take a long time to go through the upgrade
vs a clean install. My clean installs only took about 20-30
minutes, but the upgrades took over an hour.
 
You cannot upgrade from any x86 version to an x64 version.
Installation of x64 must be a clean install. You ca upgrade
Vista x64 versions from RC1 to RC2 or from earlier builds to
RC2, but that is the only path. x64 has some differences in
how it is laid out that prevents "upgrading" without causing
significant problems that would require wiping the
installation out and starting over with a clean install.
 
Probably the best place to start is to go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx and
read some of the info that has been published there. Most
of it is from MVPs that have experience with Win x64.
Whether going to Win x64 is a good solution for you really
depends whether it meets your needs or not. x64 may not be
a good solution for you, or, you may decide to go with x64.
But start at the link above.
 
Thanks for that link.

After reading the information, I really don't see any actual facts to
justify a reason for me to use the x64 version.

Just out of curriosity, how much RAM would you personally reccomend for an
x64 system. It says 256 is minimum, but the minimum requirements on most
things always perform at their worst. I am AMD64 3700+ on this computer with
1024 mb ram, and I am building a computer for a friend with an AMD64 3200+
and 512 mb ram. I will probably just install x86 RC2 on both of our
computers. Is that a mistake?
 
I use 2GB on my systems and I am quite happy with the
performance. I have seen post of quite a few running 4GB,
but if your motherboard BIOS is not set correctly Windows
doesn't see all of. Even with the correct settings you lose
some of the 4GB to the "hole" caused by the design of the board.
 
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