EP45 UD3P Dual boot XP 32bit & Win7 64bit

[EV13]

Hi all,
I'm have XP Pro SP3 32 bit; now I want to install Windows 7 64bit as dual boot (don't want to give up trusted xp yet).

I've got 8Mb ram installed, ready for the 64bit Win7 -can't wait to be able to see more than 3.2gb.

I read elsewhere that for 64bit OS, I need to set HPET in bios to 64bit;
-makes sense!

But what will then happen if I boot to 32bit XP?

Will I need to reset HPET in bios every time I boot to other OS?

Also, will this board be 'true' 64 bit in operation, or just 'compatible' with i.e. will Win7 be able to use all 8gb ram?

Any help/advice much appreciated?

[wazza300]

you can set hpet to 64 bit and still boot into winxp it wont affect anything in xp or vice versa,and yes it will use all 8gb of ram with a 64bit operating system provided you throw alot of memory hungry apps at it

[EV13]

blimey that was a quick response wazza300!
I'm much reassured; thank you for your definitive reply.

Re. Memory hungry apps; mainly I use photoshop for Hi-res print design, frequently have multiple 300GB+ files open, occasionaly files of around 1.5Gb. Lots of disk thrashing and runs very very ...very... slowly in 32bit.

So I'm really hoping the 8Gb ram will help a lot with this.

Thanks again for your reply!