Looking to upgrade my laptop. The screamin deal I found has Vista Home Premium 64bit. Will that be a problem for my Streets and Trips 2009 & S&T Keys?

S&T Keys has been written in AutoIt (autoitscript.com). I just quickly checked, and the latest version of AutoIt does support 64 bit. I'm not sure how long they've been supporting 64 bit, neither do I know if MisterMoonlinght uses the latest AutoIt version to develop S&T Keys. If he notices this thread he may tell you. Otherwise, try to ask him in the forum.

cooknkpl said:
Unfortunatly, S&T Keys is built with an old version of autoit v3.2.10.0. To my knowledge, this version is not advertized as 64 bits compatible.

And i am stuck on this old autoit version now. The reason is that autoit made a compatibility break after this version and the actual source code cannot compile correctly with newer version. I never had time to repair the problem and concentrate my work on improving S&T Keys instead.

I am all around 32 bits system here, so i have no way to test for 64 bits neither. If you have some programming knowledge, you may try to modify the actual version to support newer autoit release if you want.

I am planning to release a new version soon with new features.

I'm lucky if I can program my DVR - let alone a piece of software! After seeing the replies I'm getting another forum regarding some audio-related issues, it looks like I'll probably reformat the hard drive with XP.

cooknkpl said:

I don't know if audio glitch issues is a sickness of vista, but one of my collegue got a new laptop months ago with vista and he got enough problem with audio glitch and multimedia application that he returned his new laptop for another one with a brand old good windows xp. And this solved all problems

It looks like new things are not always better!!!

In the meantime, you may try S&T Keys on vista 64 bits. May be it could work. Give it a try and you will see...

Saying that this old autoit version is not compatible with 64 bits, it is still possible that a part of it (what is used in S&T keys) may work... Trying it will give us the answer !

I am running 64 bit Win 7 R.C. build 7100 S&T 2009 works fine in a 32 bit program file folder .
But it is not Vista though

Daniel

Danielchtong:

Thanks for the information.

Didi you try most of the features?

And as you said, win 7 is quite different than vista. I think that Microsoft work hard for back compatibility with this new OS...

You can download that 64 bit Win 7 R.C. build 7100 from Microsoft site. All you pay is a bland dvd disk. Also it work until next June - not bad for a Win 7 ultimate.

As long as you have a separate partition of around 30G, you can set that up together with your Vista/XP or whatever you have there.

It will dual boot whatever OS you use

It runs even better than Vista and XP I can assure you

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

Do you use any older software that works well in XP but not so good in Vista?

If so, does it work well in Win7 or does it give the same problems as with Vista?

Perhaps I'll have to "upgrade" the PC in my workshop from Vista to Win7 and see what breaks....

...ken...

Ken

I have loaded up S&T, Micro$oft office , Paint shop pro......usual stuff .....nothing unusual in my Win7 RC. 64 bit. Everything works. I have an old web cam (in ME days) that does not work in my Vista. It works for Win 7.

You do not need to upgrade. You can just try it out with dual boot. Most of the updated destop has sata hd. Try to find somewhere an used ide harddrive of say 30G to 40g. Or you can get that from ebay at say $10-20. Then hook that up to your motherboard (usu with a blank ide slot). That is it. It is rock rock solid and I still have to get a bsod whatever I try to throw in there. I am sure its compatibility with hardware is more widespread than Vista - u will be surprised


Daniel

I have two drives on that system but if I go dual boot I have to reinstall everything all over again in Win7. That's too much work. Win7 will upgrade from Vista so I'll probably go that route. I'll just clone the primary hard drive before I install so I can restore the Vista system intact if I run into any showstoppers with Win7.

...ken...

Ken:

Take care, win 7 is not a final release and will expire next spring (you will have to reinstall everything later). It is a free test version to make bugs going out...

The RC version is supposedly upgradable to the final version on release without a clean install. Or downgradable back to Vista if you are not sold. I think the price of the final edition will be the deciding factor. Also, this is the ultimate version so I don't know if it will be able to be replaced by a lesser version.

Terry

Thanks. Yes, I am aware of that. That's why I've chosen to install it on the PC in my workshop. I don't use it for a lot of things and there is very little that changes on it, unless I decide to do some experimenting. So the backup I did yesterday before installing Win7 will be just fine if I choose to restore it rather than buying a Win7 upgrade next July.

If it behaves itself and I like it, I may upgrade one of the PCs in the house. That one would almost certainly require a purchase of Win7 next year when the Release Candidate dies. That computer changes so much that restoring it to a current backup will not be an option. I won't make a snap decision about it because it's on XP so I would have to, first, decide whether to upgrade it to Vista (using the copy I just replaced on the workshop PC) and then to Win7, versus doing a clean install of Win7. Two successive upgrades could get messy.

...ken...

I have one that does not work for RC Win 7. Out of Office 2003, the Outlook 2003 keeps crashing. No go. But not a big deal as it will not bring down the whole OS which is rock solid.

Also this is a newly assembled system with 4 G ram making it worth the while as the 64 bits can cache more than 4 G of ram unlike XP. It does not bother me reinstall everything - not much anyway. Multitasking, and I mean several programs same thing, does not slow down the OS at all.

I have nothing but positive about RC win 7


Daniel

I have Office 2003 on my HP laptop running W7 RC. I upgraded the laptop from Vista and Outlook 2003 seems to work fine. Is there a particular action you use that crashes it? Maybe I don't use that feature. It is 32 bit though.

Terry

I upgraded my workshop PC from Vista to Win7 RC 32-bit. I decided to do 32-bit instead of 64-bit because I only have 4GB of RAM on it. Both 32-bit and 64-bit can address 4GB and both reserve the same amount for hardware memory mapping so both will only have a little over 3GB left for user programs. Since there was no advantage to 64-bit with only 4GB or RAM, I decided to avoid the headaches that can happen with 64-bit drivers possibly not being available for some stuff.

It's a good thing I decided that way because the first problem I had with Win7RC was the video card driver. There is only one program on the workshop PC that really matters to me and it wouldn't run the part that I use most. It reported that it didn't like the video driver.

The good news is that I told the device manager to update the driver and allowed it to look on the internet for a newer one. It found one, downloaded it and installed it. After a restart, my program was happy again. So far that, and the stupid User Account Control, are the only minor issues. I'll turn off UAC as soon as I get a few minutes to mess with it again.

I wish Microsoft would learn how to do UAC right. Instead of asking if it's okay to run the same program that you've already said Yes to forty or fifty times before, it should give you a checkbox that says "Don't ask again for this program." If it did that, I would leave it turned on.

...ken...

RC didn't seem to mind the 7200GS I'm using in the desktop. We'll see what it thinks of the ATI 4770 when it arrives. At least UAC is easier to turn down and you don't seem to get that stupid warning every time the computer restarts when you turn UAC off.

Terry

I had no problem with the video card driver in general use. That one program that had the problem uses Open-GL 3D graphics and drives them really really hard. It uses virtually every feature of the graphics card and the graphics are extreme. The problem wasn't a surprise. I figured if I was going to have any problem it would be with that program.

I was pleased that the soluton was so simple.

...ken...

I have a Celeron laptop running RC 32 bits with only 1 G of ram. Office 03 and outlook 03 and all programs work perfect except that it is slow.

But no matter how slow it is it still feels snappier than XP. Also crash proof (OS only)

Daniel

Hello, long-time lurker here. I had the same question about 64-bit because I need to replace my tablet. Looked on MS for system requirements and see the following:

"One of the following operating systems: Windows Vista® with Service Pack 1, Windows® XP with Service Pack 3, or Windows Server® 2003 with Service Pack 2 (64-bit versions of Windows XP and Windows Server excluded)"

I notice that it specifically does not mention Vista 64-bit. I wonder if that is by design or by error? Any thoughts?

JimB

Hi Jim,

What type of system are you thinking of replacing the tablet with and what do you expect to get from a 64-bit version of any of the operating systems?

I'm an IT professional who has been supporting PCs personally and professionally since the late '70s. Even though 64-bit versions of Windows have been available since XP and most new desktop PCs have CPUs and RAM capabilities to support 64-bit operating systems, I know of very few uses that will benefit from running on 64-bit operating systems.

Most laptop/tablet/netbook-class computers don't have the video, processor and/or hard drive performance to effectively run applications that can take advantage of 64-bit operating systems.

So I'm curious why you are considering a 64-bit operating system? I'm always interested in what sort of uses people are planning when looking at 64-bit.

...ken...

Indeed you are! You are one of the very first members who joined Laptop GPS World shortly after the web site launched. You joined on November 9th, 2007, and you were the 91st member. As of today, June 11, 2009, the site has 5,309 members.

:welcome: to the forums, Jim!

It's by design. 64-bit Vista is a mainstream operating system. S&T has been tested on 64-bit Vista and works. When it says "Vista", both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are included.

In contrast, 64-bit XP was a niche operating system, and not intended for mainstream use. It was never sold at retail, and it wasn't even adapted from the 32-bit XP codebase -- it was built from the 64-bit Server 2003 codebase. Note that 64-bit Server 2003 is also unsupported.

Ken, the major bottleneck in today's PCs is not among the components you mentioned -- it's the hard drive. Random-access on hard drives basically has not improved at all in the last decade, while most other components have improved by 10x to 1000x. The primary advantage of 64-bit is that it allows you to use more memory, which allows more caching, which allows you to hit disk a bit less frequently.

By the end of this year, the majority of new consumer PCs will be sold with 64-bit operating systems, by Moore's Law. As memories hit 4GB, manufacturers switch over to preloading 64-bit.

Thanks for the replies. It's good to know that S&T works on Vista.

I'm an IT guy, too, servers, not PC's. I agree that too many people over-do the RAM and processor specs on servers. As 64-bit becomes more common, I find my shop leaning toward standardizing on it instead of 32-bit. I think that at some point, 32-bit will go away, though it still has plenty of life left. Developers appear to be catching up with designing apps for 64-bit and multiple processors, etc.

I find that with 2GB RAM, I am frequently hovering around 50% RAM utilization on my current desktop. I thought of getting a 4GB system, then saw the 8GB systems (HP tx2z's) w/64-bit Vista, so now I'm guilty of over-spec'ing (hardware lust?) my stuff...oh, well. I will use the system in my truck on RV trips. I will use it for S&T, music, broadband (VZ or Sprint), ripping DVD's, etc. I am aware that the hard drive is the weakest link in the system. Other than better caching, there's not much to do about it until SSD's get bigger and cheaper.

On a more immediate note, I will be installing my new Pioneer F900BT this weekend. I'm curious how the GPS will compare to other products. I'm accustomed to Destinator 3 (yes, I'm dating myself) and CoPilot 6 on PDA's, haven't really used the PND's much. I've used S&T, Trailer Life RV Parks and Campground Navigator, an old Delorme.

This is a great site, Marvin. I learn a lot just browsing through topics of interest. Keep up the good work!

Hi Tao,

Thanks for describing the differences in the 64-bit implementations between the various versions of Windows. I didn't know that about XP 64-bit.

At 4GB of RAM, it's still a wash. (I know you know that. This is for the benefit of those who may be following the conversation.) At 4GB of RAM, you'll have the same amount of RAM available to user programs in either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows. Most people still aren't buying more than that so it puzzles me why anyone would invest money and time in getting a 64-bit operating system working when they don't have enough system to exceed what the 32-bit version of the operating system will do.

The primary applications that make use of 64-bit operating systems today are games and video processing of various sorts - mapping, graphics design/rendering, multimedia processing. The people who are really making use of 64-bit systems - really putting them to work hard - will tell you that video is at least as big a bottleneck as the hard drive and the CPU sometimes isn't that far behind because it can be heavily involved in rendering even with improved use of the GPUs on the video cards. The clock speeds of the main CPUs in PCs have leveled off and there still aren't that many applications that make good use of multicore processors. The Windows operating systems sure don't!

Jim, I definitely get the overspec'ing of personal systems. I have five computers. I can only use two at a time. And all but the laptop and netbook are way more system than I really need. If I was being totally truthful, with the exception of one hugely 3D graphics intensive application the laptop and netbook are probably about the right speed!) My uses are mostly trivial, where serious horsepower is concerned. But faster is so much more fun!!! It's really nice to know that I could become a server farm for half a dozen small businesses or become a small ISP if I really wanted to. I build them that way because I can, not because I need them.

...ken...

I admit, it does sound a bit wasteful to buy oodles of extra memory, and do nothing with it except hand it over to the disk cache. On the other hand, memory is so cheap now ...

32-bit Windows will begin running into certain limitations at about 2GB, although most users will not notice these. At somewhere between 3 and 4 (usually 3.5 or 3.75), the user will notice unused memory when the reserved graphics memory range is reached.

I would personally put 64-bit Windows on any machine that has at least 2GB of RAM, even though it provides no benefit on the memory front. The reasons, in order of importance:

1. Standardization across all machines.
2. Leaving open the possibility of future memory upgrades.
3. Greater security through hardware DEP and kernel PatchGuard.

At 1GB, I wouldn't bother, but I just got rid of my last 1GB machine.

Windows NT was designed and sold for multi-processor machines from the very first version, in 1993. There are parts of Windows that are serialized, but only a few of these will affect performance on real-world workloads. The most noticeable is GDI+, because people can see the UI slow down. GDI+ rendering now takes place concurrently in Windows 7.