Windows 7: windows7-32bit & windows7 64-bit

I purchased windows7 for when it comes out in Oct. My question is this
I have vista 32-bit and can do an inplace upgrade to windows7 32-bit.
Can I also do a dual boot and run windows7 64-bit on a second hdd? On the same machine!
Will I have to purchase a second key or would the same key work for both
32-bit and 64-bit?
If I install the 32-bit Windows 7 can I upgrade to 64-bit using the same key or
do I have to purchase a second key to do This?

To the best of current thinking says the same key will work both 32 & 64 bit. you can dual boot both and should be able to use the same key.
Good luck and welcome to 7 Forum.

Ken

You should be able to activate both versions but those keys are meant to be used with any one of the version at a time..

Welcome aboard the Se7enforums! gene1

ken9122 has that correct there. With the retail purchase you will see two dvds included one for the 32bit and the other for the 64bit 7 edition you preordered. Both will use the same product key included. For purchasing oem disks where the two flavors are sold separately then you would need a separate key for each there once 7 is out just as seen with previous versions.

Two drives or simply two primary partitions on one drive alone can see a working dual boot of the 32bit Windows along with the 64bit. They both would use the same boot loader while kernel in Windows itself is different.

Here it was first the beta builds and then the Release Candidates that were dual booted along with XP and Vista as well across multiple drives here. Have a look at the old partitioning layout to see where XP was gone following the release of the RCs.

You guys have answered my questions
Thanks

You're welcome!

As you look at the image posted following the RCs being released the second partition on each of two of those drives seen there was originally used for 7(Disk #1, Disk #2). For testing other configurations Disk #1 was added in for a being a host boot drive along with a second storage drive not shown there.

XP had been on Disk #1 with the Vista drive set as default before some large changes to come later. I would say!