[robomatic]

Hello folks, just purchased an extremely affordable ACER laptop on sale at a popular retailer. Although it is powered by an AMD "Turion 64 Mobile Technology MK-38" it came with Vista Home Premium 32 bit, and the computer folks at Best Buy who may or may not know what they're talking about basically said it would NOT support a Windows Vista 64 bit OS.

I'm interested in knowing if the Turion processor's 32 "extra" bits are accessible and if a 64 bit system can utilize them or if they are 'tied off' so to speak, so the processor is basically crippled at the outset.

This is my way to venture into the Vista world, as I decided to leave my perfectly functional XP machine inviolate, so I'm happy enough with my purchase, but if anyone else has considered this option as a way to install a 64 bit system I'd be interested in knowing, or if you have leads as to where to go to get more information, I'd be delighted to learn something new.

I'd also like some general setup advice, as I didn't take the store folks up on their offer to remove the sellware and tweak the system, figuring I'd learn more if I tried this my ownself. I used the Vista uninstall to get rid of the 60 day then buy Office software and the Norton utility sellware. I'm typing in Winpad which I like well enough.

Is there a need to generate a 'recovery disk' and if so how?

What antivirus software do y'all recommend? (I'm about to go get PCcillin).

Is there a good thread that goes into the differences between XP and Vista? I'm going through this forum thread by thread and assembling my own notes but you might have a favorite site to go to or such.

So far I'm pleased with the machine, it's looks, it's conformance to what it said on the display cards, and esp. the sale price.

Thanks for any help/ advice/ constructive comments.

robo

[Triple6]

You can make, and should make, a Recovery disc by going to All Programs and then to Acer. There should be a utility to make the disc sets without the discs you won't be able to reinstall Windows or the software that came with it if you have problems with the computer and if the laptop didn't come with discs.

I'd don't see why it wouldn't support the 64 bit version, but there are a lot more software compatibility issues with Vista 64 bit then with the 32 bit versions, many programs simply will not work with the 64 bit edition.

I see no reason why they would need to remove any pre-installed software, you can do that yourself, or to 'tweak' the system.

If you like PC-Cillin then go for that, just don't buy a Symantec/Norton product - they just slow down any computer and don't do a great job of protecting the system.

If you go to Google and type "Windows Vista" or "Vista Review" or "Vista versus XP" you'll get lots of results dealing with various aspects of Vista.

[katabby]

an excellent site for tips and tweaks is winvistaclub.com
I hope its okay to mention other sites. Avg antivirus (free) seems to be very popular with vista users