I upgraded a laptop a while back that was from not too long ago. I installed some extra ram only to find that it can't use it because it is a 32 bit version of Windows. So I was left scratching my head and wondering, why would anyone chose to use the 32 bit version? Sure it would make sense with older hardware which didn't support 64 bit or if you never plan on installing more than 4gb of ram, so I understand why Microsoft still makes it. But for consumer grade prebuilt computers like laptops, especially when the mobo supports more than 4gb of ram, why would they use a 32 bit OS? I see no up side. Is it cheaper? Is it faster? Is there literally any reason to use 32 bit instead of 64 bit? I am just at a loss here.
Ehh, maybe for compatibility for some software. I cam only assume its just something that goes on. Very rare to see a 32bit operating system installed by default unless its on one of those Bay/Cherry Trail tablets.
A girl I almost dated had a pretty old laptop that was running 32-bit Vista pre-installed, it was getting pretty slow. I flashed it with a 64-bit version of Linux Mint and it worked fine (thus it had a 64-bit processor).
I don't know, man. It's weird.
Windows 7 32-bit was the only CD I had cuz my laptop ODD scratched the all my 64-bit CDs. :(
if you have older laptops for example that only support upto 2GB of ram.
Then you are pretty much stuck with a X86 OS realy, especialy wenn it comes to Windows.
The reason I can come with is that its more suited to the people who just watch YouTube, Email, Word Processing very basic stuff and 64bit OS is not really needed and to save some money.
32 bit programs actually use less ram then their 64 bit counterparts
so if your making a program that doesn't use 4 GB of ram then don't make it 64 bit
Those Atom N270 Netbooks are 32-bit CPUs anyway. For obvious reasons, you wouldn't be able to run 64-bit OS and their chipset is limited to accessing 2GB maximum of RAM.
Except in doing that you now have you have double the libraries loaded in memory because your running a 32 bit programming in your 64 bit OS.
There are very few reasons anyone would use a 32bit OS anymore. The only one I can think of is single purpose legacy programs that are run on dedicated hardware.
Yep, I know what you mean!!! The trick I learned is never chat to her sister and ask innocently "what are you doing tonight?" Story for another time perhaps???
As for 32bit OS's......
Multilib systems, which are 64 bit OS' running 32 bit software, will use more memory, but using just a 32bit OS with 32bit software will use less RAM.
Unless you need to access more memory that 32b addressing will allow you, the benefits will be small, if any.
When running on 64b CPU, you get the same memory interface no matter if you are running 32b or 64b code (you are using the same cache and same BUS).
While x64 architecture has a few more registers which allows easier optimizations, this is often counteracted by the fact pointers are now larger and using any structures with pointers results in a higher memory traffic. I would estimate the increase in the overall memory usage for a 64b application compared to a 32b one to be around 15-30 %.
I always use 32 bit because I am the type of How Low Can You Go Guy.
that's always cool to do but minecraft uses like 4GB on it's own
IF you want to use a minimum of system resources, then you should look into linux and whatnot.
Anyway, what I am getting from this thread thus far is that most people agree that there isn't much reason to use a 32 bit os on a system that supports 64 and more than 4gb of ram.
well there is a windows kernel hack to use more than 4gb of ram with 32bit pae supported processes.
Only reason to is if a business program will not run on a 64bit computer.
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I have bad wifi problems and my wifi works better with a 32 bit system. I hve no idea why it works this way but it does. I have two laptops with the same wireless card. One computer runs 32 bit Linux Mint and the other runs Windows 7 64 bit. The 32 bit Mint computer's wifi is much better. I don't know why this is, but it is.
Might have something to do with the OS, other than if it is 32 or 64 bit.
Linux is much lighter weight than Windows, very most likely a driver issue either way.
I was waiting to see someone else make a mention of x86 specific processors. Some tablets like the 'winbook' still use this stuff to provide a full win 8 experience in a 7' tablet.
Not that they can't do x64 in a tablet, but I would imagine it cuts costs and such. You can google 'x86' processors and some newer stuff is on the list, mostly for mobile/tablets.
Compatibility... and sometimes there no necessity because the computer cant utilize the 64 bit extras so why use the extra space to store 64 bit libraries if you cant use them?
Same, Compatibility- find myself having either a Win7 32bit VM or XP VM for drivers to work that come pre-packaged into the Greddy (Trust) Emanage Ultimate software. Anyone game looking at the un-zipped Greddy software to find a way to insert the new updated Silicon Labs driver? That way many a tuner could be free from their old laptops or VMs.