I'd like to upgrade to Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition

[Inst]

But Microsoft won't provide a 64-bit disk, and no one wants to deal with Lenovo tech support. Unfortunate in the second case; I had heard Thinkpad was a great brand, but considering the flimsiness of the new plastic casing and the horrible service from Lenovo, I think this'll be my last Thinkpad. Or who knows. By the time I repeat the upgrade cycle, perhaps Lenovo would have gotten the clue by then and would have fixed their service problems.

Back to the topic, do you know if there's any way I can pick up Ultimate 64-bit for free, or nearly free?? I already have 32-bit Ultimate, but given the performance problems with Vista (2.0ghz core duo, 1gb ram), I'd imagine an upgrade to 4gb would be best.

[hueb]

Vista 64 bit will only make 'your' problems worse. Vista 64 bit software is actually larger, this means less RAM for you. To make your system shine, consider getting 1 - 4 gigs of RAM. It is cheap, takes 10 minutes to install and it will seem like a new machine. I always think it is funny that the Vista Performance Index leaves out the most important factor of all (RAM).

If you still want to move to Vista 64 after the RAM, you will notice (at least I have) some 32 bit programs are slightly SLOWER than before.

Hope this helps

-Hue

(edit to say I sent you a PM)

[Inst]

Aha, I was considering asking about this online. I found 4 gb of ram for $100 total. I'm wondering if this is legit, or whether I'll have compatibility problems afterwards.

The point about getting Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition is that 64-bit edition offers support for 4 gb of ram. 32-bit edition has a ram ceiling of 3 gb; 1gb will go to waste. While the file-size will be larger on the Vista Ultimate files, hopefully the raised ram-cap will compensate.

[dfumento]

Buy RAM here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rder=PRICE

[At0mAng]

Back to the topic, do you know if there's any way I can pick up Ultimate 64-bit for free, or nearly free?? I already have 32-bit Ultimate, but given the performance problems with Vista (2.0ghz core duo, 1gb ram), I'd imagine an upgrade to 4gb would be best.

If your computer came with Vista than you can use the serial number for Vista X64.
If you have a fast connection download from here. Get all 3 files.

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net ... nstall.wim

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net ... 4/boot.wim

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net ... -49121.exe

This not warez. It is Vista from MS directly, well from their digital provider. It is not SP1 but you can get that from MS.

Go here to see how you can make a boot cd from those files
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/05/1 ... ded-files/

[Inst]

Thanks! Let me see if the install would work; if it does, I'll cancel it since I don't have the 4gb of RAM at the moment.

By the way, I doubt this would work, since Windows Marketplace is rejecting my request for Windows Vista 64, claming my serial number is invalid. According to the internet, OEM versions are not eligible for free 64-bit versions.

By the way, what about the RAM upgrade? Are the third-party ram as reliable as Lenovo's RAM? SHould I get Corsair laptop ram? OCZ? Does latency matter for this application?

[At0mAng]

Just try the install. My product key on the bottom of the laptop worked just fine when I installed Vista 64.

Any good quality RAM would be good. Just check newegg.com for really good prices...

[pae77]

And if you want to entirely avoid having to "officially" activate or re-activate your new Vista installation, you can use the free "Vista ABR tool" (google for it to find out more) to back up your existing OEM Vista installation's activation key and then restore it to a new Vista installation on the same machine. Only limitation is it has to be the same version of Vista but I don't think it matters whether you change from the 32 to 64 version.

[treydur]

i used magic jellybean key finder to pull my Vista Ultimate Key from my T61P and it did allow me to install Vista Ultimate 64, however, it would not 'register' it.

As I had been led to belive by Lenovo tech support that my machine would not under any circumstances qualify for recover cd's with with ability to install 64 bit and I knew I would need it for another project later on, i snagged it off ebay relatively cheap

Installed last nite and today and now am back up. My initial impression is that is not faster at all. It does seem once it is loaded it's faster to reload than 32 bit. Boot times seem much longer and the ready boost feature doesn't seem to improve things as much.

If it wasn't for the fact my typical usage uses most of my 2GB I would leave it at 32bit. However, I idle at around 65% memory usage, so I need/want to go to 4gb.

One odd thing you might find after you fresh install, even after you run system update, you will need to go download directly the card reader software and install it again to get rid of some of the 'base device' unknown devices in device manager.

I am hopeful that after a day or two of usage things speed up. I am also going to try to use perfect disk to defrag this drive in same hopes.

Overall everything does seem to work correctly and am able to perform anything I would expect to do. Just no bonus speed I can see from going from 32 bit to 64 bit at this time.

your mileage may vary