New Win-7 pro

[VikAZ]

I just got a new laptop with 32 bit win-7 pro installed. There is a 64 bit installation disk that came with it, but I was told that this should have more than the 4 gig of memory I have on my machine. I know there are not many applications for 64 bits now. Also not all the memory will be used in the 32 bit OS.
Since everything is new should I get started with the 64 bit OS now, or will it be easy in the future if I want to switch later.

[Medico]

Welcome to The Lounge!

I believe you would have to clean install 64 Bit win 7 over the 32 Bit OS, but I'm not absolutely positive of this. Your information is correct that 32 Bit can not access the whole 4 GB RAM, it can access something like 3.5 GB + or - depending on who you talk to. Yes, there is not a great deal of apps available yet for 64 Bit, but since it is becomming so main stream, this will change quickly. If it were me, my opinion is that I would change to 64 Bit now before I loaded a bunch of apps and tweaked the OS to my liking because if the clean install is needed, all that time would be wasted.

Please note that there is a chance you will have to contact MS to activate the 64 Bit OS, unless you have not activated the 32 Bit OS yet in which case you may be able to do this activation with no problem.

Visit How To Geek for hundreds of tips and tricks to customize the OS to your pleasure.

[zigzag3143]

I just got a new laptop with 32 bit win-7 pro installed. There is a 64 bit installation disk that came with it, but I was told that this should have more than the 4 gig of memory I have on my machine. I know there are not many applications for 64 bits now. Also not all the memory will be used in the 32 bit OS.
Since everything is new should I get started with the 64 bit OS now, or will it be easy in the future if I want to switch later.

Gunter Hi and welcome

First consideration is can your hardware run 64bit. 64 bit does use more resources, and there some driver issues with it now. If you are not doing cpu intensive apps you, in my opinion, be better off with 32bit now. If you decide to go to 64bit it will require a clean install. That means re-installing all your apps which is in itself a pain. There are pros and cons to both.

Hope this has helped

Ken J

[cafed00d]

I have been happily running 64-bit Win7 on my 2-year-old HP laptop with 4GB of memory. When the Win7 beta first came out a year ago I placed both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions on my laptop, just in case certain things would not run in 64-bit. For the the release candidate I used only the 64-bit version. I have not had any issues with lack of hardware drivers - even my web cam and secure card reader work without issues.

With 32-bit Win7, you can probably make use of only about 3.2GB of the RAM. With 64-but Win7 you can use all 4GB. I especially like the fact that I can run 64-bit apps that require gobs of memory (had to do this once at a customer site where a certain app required 7GB of memory to run - I just bumped up the page file size and let 'er run).

The question probably really comes down whether you really need large amounts of memory to run your apps. I occasionally do, so it is worth running 64-bit. But most apps really do not need it. And there are some apps that won't work in 64-bit (for example, I had to abandon ZoneAlarm when I went to 64-bit).

[Tarbo]

As stated, and generalized here, most things will work most of the time in 64-bit, especially going forward and if there's a need for more than ~3.2 gigs of memory, the only way to get it is with 64-bit. I personally run into too many compatibility issues (not show-stoppers but certainly annoying) and everything I do is easily handled with 2 gigs or less of RAM so I actually convert any 64-bit to 32-bit with a new install. Someday I'm sure I'll have to switch them all back for some unforseen compelling reason but I already run an extra virtual OS, multi-task fairly intensely, and comfortably render AVCHD video with file sizes upwards of 35GB, all at the same time, no problem (I'm still processor-bound, not RAM-bound).

[cafed00d]

One more thing. 64-bit computing is not without its hassles. For example, I do a lot of Java development work. Eclipse is a 32-bit application (though the next version will have both 32- and 64-bit packages) and thus works only with a 32-bit Java Virtual Machine (JMV), so I end up installing both 32-bit and 64-bit JVMs. Another example: there are two versions of IE, a 32-bit one and a 64-bit one. You cannot use the 64-bit one for web sites that use Java applets because only the 32-bit JVM comes with a browser plugin, and thus it works only with the 32-bit version of IE. Similar things can happen if you have favorite plugins for Windows Explorer - they will not work unless there is a 64-bit version of that plugin.

Another thing is that older 16-bit apps will not run at all on 64-Bit Windows. This includes old 16-bit installers. Of course, you can always run this stuff in a 32-bit virtual machine.

[CLiNT]

I just got a new laptop with 32 bit win-7 pro installed. There is a 64 bit installation disk that came with it, but I was told that this should have more than the 4 gig of memory I have on my machine. I know there are not many applications for 64 bits now. Also not all the memory will be used in the 32 bit OS.
Since everything is new should I get started with the 64 bit OS now, or will it be easy in the future if I want to switch later.

It will be easier to get started on 64 bit later as software matures. Your W7 32 bit os will recognize and show the 4 GB of memory you have. Your not missing anything just yet.

[Medico]

As I stated earlier, I would choose 64 Bit from the get go. I have loaded 5 PCs with Win 7 and 3 have 64 Bit. All running without problem. I use the 32 Bit IE for now (Flash also does not have a 64 Bit variety just yet) or FF 3.6.2 I believe (my default now). All my 32 Bit apps run just fine. All my devices work great, and since you have a new PC, yours shoud work fine as well. You do have to ensure your CPU is 64 Bit (Right click My Computer and select properties to check this). By choosing 64 Bit now you don't have to go through the process again in a few months.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how well behaved 64 Bit Win 7 is. Plus when you wish you can always add more RAM. Yes, perhaps each app does not use 4 GB, but if you use graphics intensive apps or intense games or if you have more than one app open at once, as most of us do, you will appreciate being able to access more fast RAM rather than slower vertual memory. Why limit yourself when you have the opportunity from the start. Go for it!

[Tarbo]

Why limit yourself when you have the opportunity from the start.

Because as is clear from reading, one gains some things and loses some things. Its a tradeoff.

One other thing I just remembered is that 32-bit OSs (Vista and 7) will not be able to use the new allocation tables for hard drives that are soon to come out in the greater than 2.2 terabyte size. So if one plans on getting drives over two terabytes, gotta go with 64-bit.

[curiousclive]

Because as is clear from reading, one gains some things and loses some things. Its a tradeoff.

One other thing I just remembered is that 32-bit OSs (Vista and 7) will not be able to use the new allocation tables for hard drives that are soon to come out in the greater than 2.2 terabyte size. So if one plans on getting drives over two terabytes, gotta go with 64-bit.

I do not see what the trade off is. I have 64 bit win 7 and can run 32bit programs without any problems as it has two program files one for 32bit programs and one for 64 bit,

I have been using 64bit since vista and from beginning of win 7 RC and have had no issues whatever either with drivers or programs. I can have 8GB of ram so problem with multiple files or browsers being open at once .

Only thing need to be sure of is your hardware is capable by using Microsoft compatibility checker.

[Tarbo]

Peter J does a nice job of describing some of the tradeoffs that may or may not be encountered and for me personally it is with networking. 64-bit 7 seems to be very Windows 7 system-centric, detecting and displaying those without a problem but I always have to enter a specific address to go to shares on any other system and NAS interaction is just as spotty and the software for my NAS network is not compatible with 64-bit. As soon as I switch to 32-bit every network place comes up, including the NAS drives, and, this is a bit difficult for me to admit, faster than my beloved XP!

So that would be a fairly big tradeoff as far as I'm concerned, especially since I don't benefit from using 64-bit at this time, but to each their own, if one never runs into any of those issues or others, than there are no trradeoffs and everything is smooth sailing.