32 bit application on 64 bit Vista

[Steve Drake]

Nope, it's a pain :)

You can dual boot, or get your company to use a different VPN client.

[Dzomlija]

You shouldn't have a problem using the 32-Bit VPN client on 64-Bit
Windows which runs 32-Bit software as well as (if not better than) the
32-Bit versions of Windows.

The one issue that you may encounter is if the VPN client uses 32-Bit
device drivers for communication, in which case you're out of luck. One
of the design features of Vista x64 is that you cannot under any
circumstances use 32-Bit drivers.

What you need to assess is whether or not the VPN client uses it's own
communication stack, or if it uses the Windows facilities for
communication. If it uses the Windows networking protocols, then chances
are very good that it will work on Vista x64.

[John Smith]

Sometimes attention to details is more than just embarrassing. I was dead
on my feet! Sorry.

[Tom Lake]

I hope you're being facetious! Many companies don't have the resources to
thoroughly test their products on every platform. I run many 32-bit software
packages which the vendor hasn't tested but which run perfectly fine in
Vista-64.

Tom Lake

[John Smith]

I appreciate the feedback on this.

I'm afraid I got myself caught in a mess. I bought a PC with 4 GB of RAM
and accepted advice that I needed to order the 64 bit OS in order to be able
to use the memory I bought. Now I realize I cannot run a really important
productivity application without having to buy a second OS and go through
the hassle of installing Vista 32 on a brand new Vista 64 PC.

I will assume that I will have to completely wipe out the partitions on the
hard drive (the recovery partition that came with the PC and the system
partition) and create a new system partition to install the 32 bit version
of Windows.

Surely not a 5 minute task! Frustrating! :-(

Of course, to add insult to injury, I will have paid for a GB of memory that
I will go mostly unused.

[Bob Campbell]

No. You could just partition the drive and install Vista 32 alongside
Vista 64.

Or you can what I do. I run XP inside Virtual PC on my Vista 64 machine.
All of my work stuff (Visual Studio, Crystal Reports, SQL Server, VPN
connection, Outlook email, etc. etc.) is all running on XP in VPC. This
gives the added benefit that only the XP machine is tied to the VPN
connection to the office, not my whole machine. Outside of this single
Virtual machine, I have full internet access without going thru the company
network.

Very handy and clean solution. Plus back up and restore the Virtual hard
disk is a breeze. Virtual PC is a free download from MS.