Just about to invest in a new 'puter. I see that most of the big sellers - Dell, Mesh etc are installing 64 bit Windows as standard. I've heard a few sacre stories about incompatabilities so what are teh advantages of 64 over 32?

64bit has become mainstream since vista... theres no reason not to use it.

32bit has lower RAM addressing capibilites than 64bit. Without changing stuff 64bit is only really worth worrying about with 4gb RAM or more.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/32-bit-and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765

And if you have some old favourite programs/plugins you may find that they are incompatible with 64 bit (especially if the programs in question are no longer developed)

'Tis the future.

But as said newer 'puters like lots of RAM and for that you really need 64bit.

I hate 64 bit windows 7. Flash support is a beta type and has a couple of funny issues with the sound side of things and a few of my favorite old programmes won't run on it either. I preferred Vista as I didn't have any issues wth it at all. I do think that 7 will become better over time and having installed SP1 it seems to be slightly more stable. it does keep crashing with Internet explorer and I believe I am not alone in this.

I run Win 7 x64 and x86 Enterprise on my two machines at work and Win 7 x64 Pro at home, never had an issue with any of them, i rather like it now i have got over the initial shock of upgrading from XP, Vista passed me by entirely.

16 bit FTW!!!!

Pure snobbery, no man needs more than 8

Edited 25 March, 201115 yr by Aspman

...I do think that 7 will become better over time...

I've worked with 8, 16, 32, 48 and 64 bit computers, and all you definitely say is that, whatever you choose, it'll be out of date next week.

Phil

:( Probably right. Had the blue square of death today. I think Briskoda killed my lappy again

And if you have some old favourite programs/plugins you may find that they are incompatible with 64 bit (especially if the programs in question are no longer developed)

Not found anything yet that does not work on 64bit, we are deploying it at work, and the place I work at currently has some very dated software. Desktops are going from XP to 7 64bit, and servers are going from Win 2K and 2K3 to 2008 R2 64bit in a VMWare environment.