Thinking windows 7 64bit, have questions

L8R wrote on 11/29/2009, 9:49 PM

I'm faced with having to upgrade my one computer. I was thinking of going the new i7 processor with windows 7 64 bit to take full advantage of the RAM.

Couple questions:
If I own Vegas 9 pro 32 bit, do I have to buy the 64 bit or is it included with in my download I already have?
Is it wise to jump to windows 7 yet with Vegas and all of it's plugins?
Will it all work?
My fear is that I'm not going to have a easy transition over to Windows 7 having issues with compatibilities , then to throw the 64 bit on top... I just don't want to find out after I have this built that, this doesn't work now and that doesn't work and oh you need this for that program to work.
Can anyone shed some light on this.
BTW - I have been reading the thread on windows 7 64 bit with Vegas 9c and it doesn't sound promising.
Thanks in advance
L8R

Comments

xberk wrote on 11/29/2009, 10:42 PM

You get 64 bit Vegas if you own a license for 32 bit. Just download the 64 bit version and register it using same serial number as your V9 32 bit. You do not have to remove the 32 bit version either. You can run both. Of course, the 64 bit Vegas will only run under a 64 bit OS.

I would encourage you to jump to Win 7 with a fresh install of all your software and a new main drive. You may have issues with some drivers for legacy software, but probably not many as Win7 has excellent compatibility modes going back to Windows 95 !!.

I do not know about the phase "Vegas and all of its plugins" .. Plugins that come with Vegas will run -- 3rd party plugins are another matter under 64 bit Win 7. I am having no problems under Win 7 64 bit and V9.0C either with AVCHD or SD video but some problems with using JPG's and even PNG's. But this problem is nothing to do with Win7 as 9.0b does not have the issue..

ushere wrote on 11/29/2009, 11:01 PM

If I own Vegas 9 pro 32 bit, do I have to buy the 64 bit or is it included with in my download I already have?

free download if you purchase 9

Is it wise to jump to windows 7 yet with Vegas and all of it's plugins?

it's never wise to jump! check your system with win 7 advisor to find any problems. if all ok, then do a CLEAN install. i'm not aware of any problems with 32bit plugins in vegas 32bit. however, be advised 32bit plugins WONT work in vegas 64 bit.

Will it all work?

it seems to be for a great many people on this board, including myself. in fact, i'd go as far as to say it's much more reliable and certainly faster rendering than xp pro (which i dual booted for 3 months till i was sure all was ok)

I have been reading the thread on windows 7 64 bit with Vegas 9c and it doesn't sound promising

any problems that there are at the moment seem to be with vegas 9c, not win 7 64bit. so far i haven't encountered any problems, but then again i always encode video, and create graphics to vegas friendly formats to begin with. ymmv

L8R wrote on 11/30/2009, 6:18 AM

Thanks people for your responses.
I just hate finding out after the fact that "I should have done this...."
It seems to always happen no matter how much pre investigation I do.
Yeah I plan to do everything fresh, brand new machine.... custom built. I want as easy of a start up as possible.
Thanks again, love this forum.
L8R

daryl wrote on 11/30/2009, 7:36 AM

FWIW, I just acquired a new i7 machine and installed Windows 7, completely LOVE IT, workflow in 9c 64 bit is SMOOTH, effortless.

Laurence wrote on 11/30/2009, 7:58 AM

I have Windows 7 sitting in a box on a shelf near my computer. It turns out it's an "upgrade version" so I can only install it over an existing installation of Vista. No problem except that I know from past experience that installs over existing versions seem to be fraught with problems. Not only that, but my computer is a laptop and that means that instead of a Windows Vista 64 install disc, I have a silly little partition on my drive. So not only do I have to install it over the existing version, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do with that extra partition. I'm somewhat computer savvy and it's a pain for me. I don't know how an average computer user is supposed to deal with this sort of extremely common situation. You'd think Microsoft would make it a bit easier. After all, they were the ones who set it all up this way.

reberclark wrote on 11/30/2009, 8:44 AM

I am very interested in this thread - I am in the same position as L8R - anything more that anyone could post would be great. Thanks.

Birk Binnard wrote on 11/30/2009, 8:55 AM

Installing a clean copy of Win7 is clearly preferable to installing on top of an existing system. This does require re-installing all your software, but the benefits of starting with a clean system are worth it.

Also, you'll want at least 6GB of RAM. Vegas loves lots of RAM when rendering. With an i7 remember you have 8 CPUs to keep happy, and, with the proper tweaks, Vegas uses them all.

There is an important fix Vegas needs to render without crashing under 64-bit OSs. There are several threads here about this. Try searching for "amazing fix" to find one of them.

MarkWWW wrote on 11/30/2009, 11:48 AM

Although Microsoft don't want you to do a clean install using the upgrade version of Win7, and indeed make it difficult for you to do so, they haven't actually made it impossible.

Lots of information on the WWW on the methods you need to adopt to achieve this, but I think this site explains it as well as any. As you'll see, it's not really that difficult.

Mark

LReavis wrote on 11/30/2009, 12:00 PM

upgrade Win 7 requires installing over an existing OS? I bought the 64-bit upgrade version and spent a lot of time installing programs and testing before activating - only to get an error prompt telling me I had to install it as an upgrade instead of doing a clean install (I had expected it would merely ask me to insert my original OS installation disk - like all earlier versions of Windows that I had upgraded).

After far too many hours, I read somewhere on the web that one could simply install it again ON TOP OF the existing Win 7 installation, treating it as an upgrade from Win 7 to Win 7.

It worked! - All the programs that I had installed were untouched; this procedure saved my 20 days of installing and tweaking . . .

warriorking wrote on 11/30/2009, 6:26 PM

Windows 7 update versions can be installed without any OS present... just as with vista you just install twice....I just wish we could get the nonresponse bug fixed in 9c with windows 7..its driving me nuts...

ritsmer wrote on 12/1/2009, 6:52 AM

@ Birk Binnard:

I am not so sure that the "2 GB Hack" alias "Amazing Fix" is needed anymore.

For me it was a clear MUST under XP SP3 and also under Windows 7 Beta and RC1- else I got the hangs and reds and &%¤#§
Remember that the "Amazing Fix" was not a Vegas aimed thing - but a well known fix for many programs - also i.e. Microsofts own Flight Simulator.

However some 10 days ago I bought and installed from scratch a "real" Windows 7 (ultimate because I have 2 x quad Xeons).
I must admit that I got pretty surprised as Vegas Pro 9.0c just worked and worked even if I forgot to apply the 2 GB Hack. I have just finished a 25 minutes HD thing made from some 228 HD clips and large JPG's - but everything just worked perfectly.

To me it seems that Microsoft might have improved the memory leak in XP and Win7 Beta+RC1 before releasing the "real" version of Windows 7.

Btw. there are other good improvements in the "real" version - i.e. its ability to show AVCHD high profile as thumbnails - which RC1 could not do.

CClub wrote on 12/1/2009, 10:16 AM

I went Windows 7 64bit at the end of October. I have 5 internal drives, and I kept my XP 32bit on the current drive, and I installed a dual boot (XP and Windows 7). That way, I could continue to use XP if needed and could take my time installing all the programs in Windows 7. IF you can do this, I highly recommend it. There are multiple traces of files spread all over your previous OS that you may need to copy/paste into the Windows 7 OS hard drive (Cinescore wav files, Excalibur/VASST Ultimate S preset files, ShuttlePro presets) that you may lose if you start from scratch.

I am having very minimal problems with Windows 7 64bit. I can preview in full resolution much of the time (except with multiple HD tracks in MultiCam). I am occasionally getting the red frames if I switch to other programs while editing or for various unusual reasons, but when I restart Vegas, they disappear. I wouldn't edit without Windows 7 64bit unless it's essential for a few small 32bit programs (e.g., Magic Bullet).

LReavis wrote on 12/1/2009, 10:51 AM

I've been using Win 7 64 ever since I downloaded the final version on Oct. 24. Too many problems installing old programs to list them all, but this has been by far the most painful Win upgrade ever (I started with DOS, then Win 3.1). However, by using the free EasyVMX to install 32-bit WinXP and installing most of my troubled programs there, I now have a fairly complete system again.

EasyVMX is a virtual machine that works inside of Win 7 64bit - and it's surprisingly quick. By using it, I can access programs that must have 32 bit OS without having to reboot.

All in all, I'm pretty happy - especially now that I can render monster bad .VEGs in 9C in one piece without having to render out dozens of tiny pieces that I'd have to re-assemble into one complete .AVI. And, no, I also found that I didn't need the memory hack.

However, because of the well-known problems with 9C, I do most of my editing in 8C. Here's hoping that 9D 64bit will eliminate the need for 8C with its limited ability to work with large stills . . .

JohnnyRoy wrote on 12/1/2009, 11:53 AM

> I have Windows 7 sitting in a box on a shelf near my computer. It turns out it's an "upgrade version" so I can only install it over an existing installation of Vista.

That was not my experience. I ordered the upgrade of Windows 7 and I shrunk my Vista partition and installed Windows 7 in a new partition and it never once asked me for anything. It simply installed and activated and is running fine. That was 2 weeks ago and I still don't have all of my applications installed (what a nightmare with all the stupid activations) but so far so good.

I would backup your laptop. Delete everything except Vista itself. Shrink the Vista partition down to the bare minimum, create a new partition from the remaining disc space, install Windows 7 clean on the new partition. You can then delete the Vista partition and expand the Windows 7 partition to include it for no wasted disc space.

~jr

Barefoot Joe wrote on 12/2/2009, 5:03 AM

I have recently "upgraded" five computers from Vista with Windows 7. I bought 5 separate upgrade disks, W7 Ultimate. On all machines, I booted from the disk and did a clean install. There is a "Custom Install" option in the process. If that is selected, there is a format hard drive option. I formatted every one of my 5 machines' system hard drives and installed Windows 7 without a problem. I was also able to delete an unnecessary partition on one of the drives, and merge that space with the newly formatted partition, so the space is now part of the system drive partition. This was all done with the Windows 7 upgrade disk.

The only disclaimer I should mention is that I used Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade on all of the machines. Four of the machines had Vista Ultimate on them, and one had a Windows 7 Ultimate RC (upgraded from Vista Ultimate), all legitimate copies. Four of the machines I put on 64 bit, one 32 bit.

I know that formatting can be a little scary. If you are worried and have a large external hard drive, you may consider ghosting the current system drive to that before formatting. I didn't though.