The laptop project moves ahead a little, and many thanks for the XP advice given before.

Laptop is an HP 6910p (2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - due for upgrade as budget permits).

I'm using it mainly for browsing (using FireFox) and typing/spreadsheets (LibreOffiice).

I plan to upgrade the drive to 250GB or so & the RAM to 4GB.

Much of our peripheral stuff is from the XP era but still works fine, so I need it to work with the laptop. We've had some problems with 'er indoors work laptop (w7 64) when either drivers don't work or we can't find a compatible one.

32 bit w7 has been suggested so as to be more backwards compatible (peripherals, some software) BUT I understand it only can see about 3.5GB or RAM.

64bit w7 can see all 4GB.

I understand there is little to choose in performance terms between the two on this laptop.

My questions:

1. Can I run older device drivers (mostly 32bit XP) under win7 64?

2. Can I run older software (again mostly 32bit) under the compatibility box on win7 64?

3. I've installed win7 32b pro tem so if the answer is to go to 64bit can I upgrade my 32bit install or do I need to start from a clean disk?

Sorry to fry the brains over the weekend ...

Regards, Mike

RAM is correct, although I think PAE can be used to see/address more, but I'm not sure how as I've never done it before. If 64bit works though, then that'll save the need for that.

FWIW, if size isn't an issue, change the HDD plan for an SSD. Will make it fly in comparison!

1) Not sure. I vaguely recall trying, and failing, to do so in the past.

2) Yes, but you won't need the compatibility box. Office 2010 for example is advised to be installed as a 32bit version by MS, even on 64bit installs. That said, you might find a few bits of very old software won't work on 64bit (we had some at uni that had to be reverted) but most should be fine.

3) Start again from fresh.

Personally, I'd go for 64bit first, check drivers and then revert if needed.

Edited 16 March, 201313 yr by TriggerFish

1 - No, it has to be 64 bit drivers for a 64-bit OS

2 - Technically yes, you can run 32-bit software in a 64-bit OS but compatibility isn't guaranteed as aside from 32 bit/64 bit the underlying kernel in Vista and 7 is different from XP

3 - No, you can't go from a 32 bit version of Windows to a 64-bit, you have to back up your files and do a clean install

With just 4GB ram you're unlikely to get much benefit with the 64-bit version because it requires more memory than the 32 bit version.

John

With just 4GB ram you're unlikely to get much benefit with the 64-bit version because it requires more memory than the 32 bit version.

John

Didn't know that bit. Don't forget though, you can process 64 bits of data per tick/cycle, so it should be more efficient compared to 32bit (as I understand it anyway). No idea how much difference that makes in real life though!

Personally, I'd go with 64bit and do a fresh install. 64bit is the way ahead, and Windows 8 will be the last 32bit OS and take up of the 32bit version of that has been slow compared to the 64bit version. All of the server side of Microsoft offerings are all ready 64bit only and have been since Server 2008 R2.

I have run both 64bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 and not yet found anything that does not work. Unless you have something thats really old then it should be fine on Windows 7 64bit.

If you go 32bit then there is no point in getting 4GB of ram since the operating system cannot address much above 3GB so you may as well save some money and only get 3GB of ram.

If it's just the system drivers for the 6910p I can say that all system devices work fine under win 7 64 bit - I set one of these up just before Christmas!

Didn't know that bit. Don't forget though, you can process 64 bits of data per tick/cycle, so it should be more efficient compared to 32bit (as I understand it anyway). No idea how much difference that makes in real life though!

That's not how 64 bit processing works (even if it did, it would be no more efficient as it needs twice the amount of memory for certain operations), a 64-bit processor offers better memory handling and more extensive registers but the actual performance advantage that gives will vary but frequently not that significant. The big advantage of 64-bit processing is the ability to handle large amounts of memory, the processing advantage is not really an issue as for many large processor intensive tasks you're going to need the larger amount of memory anyway so 32 bit isn't even a consideration.

John

I've got 2M ram on my PC ,and it does the job as a non gaming PC. I did have a PC running WIN7 32 ,on same spec ,and found it slow. So 64bit, seems to have changed the speed .

Win7 does like a lot of memory. 2Gb is really a minimum and if you've got 64bit it's worth going up to 4Gb.

I've got 8Gb in the desktop and I doubt there is a really any massive advantage of 8 over 4 unless you do some specific work that needs it.

I have a 5 year on ex-vista laptop running W7 32bit with 2GB RAM that's sluggish but faster than it was with Vista. I've stuck in a USB thumbdrive for readyboost that makes perhaps 20% improvement in speeds.

My 64 bit desktop with W7 and 4GB flies. I am considering upping the RAM to 8GB though just because I have some free slots...

SSD FTW on laptops. Makes a huge difference on old ones. I've a 7yr old HP that goes like the blazes running Mint Linux on a £25 60Gb SSD and 2Gb ram.

Win7 does like a lot of memory. 2Gb is really a minimum and if you've got 64bit it's worth going up to 4Gb.

I've got 8Gb in the desktop and I doubt there is a really any massive advantage of 8 over 4 unless you do some specific work that needs it.

I find win 7 64 runs faster on 2gb than XP .I've no real problems on mine with 2GB ,and going up to 4gb would mean two 2gb boards. As saiud- if not broke,so I'll leve it alone .

Many thanks to all for the feedback. I've learned a lot.

For me, it seems upping to 4GB will not gain me much on win7 32 and going to win7 64 may cost me in demand for more RAM so potentially a zero sum exercise.

The most interesting - to me - bit of learning right now is about readyboost. I'm going to experiment a bit & report back via a new thread.

Regards, Mike

My experiences of W7/64 on 2 G are that it's an improvement on W7/32 on 2GB. dEFFO FASTER AND EASIER TO RUN .

Edited 30 March, 201313 yr by VWD

For me, it seems upping to 4GB will not gain me much on win7 32 and going to win7 64 may cost me in demand for more RAM so potentially a zero sum exercise.

The bottom line is that the two are pretty much the same, but one has greater addressability (64-bit length memory addresses rather than 32-bit) so if you're planning to have more than 4Gb in the future (or have 4Gb currently and want to use all of it) install the 64-bit version. The 64-bit version doesn't demand any more RAM, but it can utilise any more you do add. There are ways you can make the 32-bit system see more RAM, but because it has to munge around with addresses, there will be a performance cost and tbh, if you're in this position of building a machine from scratch, you may as well do it properly and go 64-bit from the outset for better future proofing

All imho

Chris

My experiences of W7/64 on 2 G are that it's an improvement on W7/32 on 2GB. dEFFO FASTER AND EASIER TO RUN .

Do you have any performance metrics for before and after? I'm a bit surprised as in all the installs I've done with like-for-like hardware, both 32-bit and 64-bit have been on a par...

Chris

1. You CAN address 4gb of ram in 32bit Windows XP by modifying the Boot ini file. Especially usefull if you use memory hungry applications like Solidworks or Inventor.

2. Don't use 64bit Windows 7 Unless your laptop supports more than 4Gb of ram which i don't think it does so stick with 32bit you will get no performance advantage as someone already mentioned Windows 7 64bit requires marginally more ram so its a net loss. People often think when they format their tired old 32 bit machine and then install 64bit that this is the reason for the performance boost. Its not its just because its a fresh install. If you had two side by side like for like it would be neglegable difference at this spec.

1. You CAN address 4gb of ram in 32bit Windows XP by modifying the Boot ini file. Especially usefull if you use memory hungry applications like Solidworks or Inventor.

Does this make any difference? Each 32-bit process still only has a 2Gb portion of the Virtual Address Space available to it...

Chris

Does this make any difference? Each 32-bit process still only has a 2Gb portion of the Virtual Address Space available to it...

Chris

Yes it makes a difference the typical switch:

Basically allocates 1gb to the operating system and 3gb for all other applications. Depends on Video card and motherboard

bios settings i have seen it where the video card needs a certain amount of Ram to load so this reduces the overall ram but

generally you can use the full 4gb. Certain applications (not all) are written to take advantage of this. Its covered by a Microsoft KB article somewhere. Many graphics applications support this which is why i mentioned Solidworks and Inventor.

Yes it makes a difference the typical switch:

Basically allocates 1gb to the operating system and 3gb for all other applications.

Interesting and every day is a school day! However, I think there may be a small amount of confusion in what the flag does and how it relates to physical RAM. When a process is created, it has a Virtual Address Space which is its available footprint in virtual memory and comprises User Space (default addressability 2Gb of memory) and Kernel Space (default addressability 2Gb of memory). This means that an application (assuming single process) can allocate up to 2Gb of memory for its uses but whether that memory is physical RAM or virtual memory will be up to the OS virtual memory manager and will be determined by what other processes are running and their priority in the system.

Enabling the 3Gb flag adjusts the split of user/kernel mode such that user space can address up to 3Gb with the kernel mode portion of the VAS only being able to address 1Gb, provided the application is compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag (which as you mention is common with memory-hungry graphics apps). So, in theory, you should see improvements even when there is only 2Gb of physical RAM because the process has access to more user storage than when the flag is not set.

It seems in later versions of 32-bit Windows, the 3Gb flag has been superceded by the /userva flag which lets you specify the size of the user space (between 2 and 3Gb) with the kernel space being the remainder up to 4Gb.

Chris

Interesting and every day is a school day! However, I think there may be a small amount of confusion in what the flag does and how it relates to physical RAM. When a process is created, it has a Virtual Address Space which is its available footprint in virtual memory and comprises User Space (default addressability 2Gb of memory) and Kernel Space (default addressability 2Gb of memory). This means that an application (assuming single process) can allocate up to 2Gb of memory for its uses but whether that memory is physical RAM or virtual memory will be up to the OS virtual memory manager and will be determined by what other processes are running and their priority in the system.

Enabling the 3Gb flag adjusts the split of user/kernel mode such that user space can address up to 3Gb with the kernel mode portion of the VAS only being able to address 1Gb, provided the application is compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag (which as you mention is common with memory-hungry graphics apps). So, in theory, you should see improvements even when there is only 2Gb of physical RAM because the process has access to more user storage than when the flag is not set.

It seems in later versions of 32-bit Windows, the 3Gb flag has been superceded by the /userva flag which lets you specify the size of the user space (between 2 and 3Gb) with the kernel space being the remainder up to 4Gb.

Chris

It does work in practice however i doubt a typical home user would notice any real world difference. For designers it was a brilliant short term solution to a hardware problem. Although in an ideal world you would just upgrade all the hardware and run 64Bit. We just used this method as a stop gap.

I noticed that by default Vista / 7 already notice the 4GB and can use the userva flag.

1. You CAN address 4gb of ram in 32bit Windows XP by modifying the Boot ini file. Especially usefull if you use memory hungry applications like Solidworks or Inventor.

Edit: already answered, thanks.

Could you tell me how, please? Or perhaps give me a helpful clicky?

I'm doing a lot of research/discovery and tend to use many browser windows at the same time == hungry for memory.

Regards, Mike

Edited 2 April, 201313 yr by StickyMicky