TOPIC: Students can obtain Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate for $60.

You lost me at - if you have an IE entry - how do I see that...?

Don't worry too much Gary - you would know if you had 64-bit.<br /><br />Anyway, if you have Vista, you can "upgrade" it to a 64-bit version (Professional or Ultimate at least) for $10.  MS sends you a disk.  You go here to order it:<br /> www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/windowsanytimeupgrade/overview.mspx <br /><br />It is not really an upgrade though.  You need to do a clean install of the new operating system.<br /><br />Before you do, you need to make sure there are 64-bit drivers for all of your stuff - vid card, printer, sound card, etc.  Pretty much everything released in the past 2 years or so has 64-bit drivers, but it is good to find out.  As recently as a few months ago there were a lot missing, by now just about everyone has updated their drivers.  A few notable exceptions exist, such as Palm.<br /><br />The 64-bit system is much more secure, more stable, and can handle a lot of memory better (4 gigs or over).  You don't need 64-bit programs, it can run just about any 32-bit program.  Older 32-bit programs can have a problem, as well as some games that were hard-coded to certain shortcuts in the 32-bit code.  Also, a lot of older apps, even if they were 32-bit, used 16-bit installers which were a no go.  However, just like the drivers it is a good idea to make sure all your current programs will run in 64-bit.<br /><br />If you have a Core Duo, it sounds like you have a pretty recent computer so the chance of having problems is a lot smaller.

I just got this machine...I know nothing about it except it has Vista...and lots of RAM and Memory...