Pretty much all this year (2009); especially since March, I’ve been urging everybody to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system if at all possible when they upgrade to Windows 7: Be that with the acquisition of a new computer, or by means of upgrading the operating system in their existing machine.

There may be something holding some people back from doing that though: That being the matter of compatibility; of existing devices and of frequently used applications.

The question is this: Will devices that worked well in 32-bit operation still work in 64-bit operations?

The answer to that is: Normally, yes; although you’ll need to download and install a 64-bit driver for the device in question in the 64-bit version of Windows 7. If the device is an older device then there might not have been a 64-bit driver developed for it. If it’s a newer device then chances are that there are both 32 and 64-bit drivers available for the device, both of which can be downloaded from the internet.

In the majority of cases this will be true, but in a few cases, usually with regard to older devices, and I mean much older devices, it may not be so. I would assume, however, that if a device doesn’t have an available 64-bit driver to go with it, then it’s probably not capable of working with Windows 7; 32 or 64-bit anyway. I believe that this would be correct in at least 9 out of 10 cases.

Why do I assume this? Simply because of the following: When XP was released, everything was 32-bit. A few 64-bit-capable devices were around, with matching 64-bit drivers, but these were rather few and far between. In those days processors were single-cored, and while becoming faster and faster, they were nevertheless only 32-bit capable.

Eventually a 64-bit version of Windows XP was released – I’m not sure as to at what point in time this was, but even if devices were 64-bit capable, many lacked 64-bit driver support, and the manufacturers didn’t bother writing any 64-bit software to accompany their product because the demand was so tiny that it was hardly worth investing the money in research and development to do so. – Thus 64-bit XP never really took off, and everyone bar a few stuck to 32-bit, even after the development and commercial release of the first 64-bit processor.

In 2007 along came Windows Vista. This was meant to be a big thing; but Microsoft had developed it in total secrecy, and most manufacturers weren’t prepared for producing the new type of hardware that was required by Vista. The thing was that there was neither the proper hardware available for either the 32 or the 64-bit version of Vista, bar that from a number of Microsoft’s partner organisations which had been given advanced disclosure.

This, added to the fact that Vista was as buggy as a dead log in an Amazonian jungle, put a lot of people right off it; and it basically flopped. (As an example of this; there are to this day over 3 times as many people visiting this blog using XP as there are those that use Vista to do so.) – However a 64-bit version of Vista was available from the outset, and many of those who did take to using Vista over time actually bought and used it. Manufacturers developed both 32 and 64-bit drivers for their add-on peripherals and devices for running under Windows Vista as a rule, because there was a marked growth in 64-bit usage. The new type of hardware that was Vista-compatible was backwards-compatible with Windows XP, but a lot of the hardware that was originally built to run XP on wasn’t compatible with Vista, nor did it have any 64-bit drivers for it; neither for use with XP or with Vista. – Add to this the fact that most if not all drivers; both 32 and 64-bit, that were developed for XP, won’t work eith Vista or Windows 7 anyway.

Windows 7 uses exactly the same hardware technology as does Vista; so this time there’s no problem with device-compatibility between devices designed to run with Vista and those designed to run with Windows 7. – However, the devices designed to run under XP that won’t work in Vista also won’t work in Windows 7. – And there are many of those devices still around – because many people; myself included, never bothered to move to Vista from XP. I’ve scrapped and broken up my original XP computer, but many people still have theirs; and chances are that their machines won’t run Windows 7, or will run it so badly that they’ll be unusable to all intents and purposes. Whilst it may be the case that the existing XP-capable machines can be upgraded to run Windows 7, it’s hardly worth doing so: The hardware’s old and was never meant for today’s demands: To my mind it’s just throwing good money after bad.

- So my advice to anyone who’s currently running XP on their computer any older than 3 years old is to get a new computer that’s capable of running Windows 7 64-bit, and do so. You will appreciate the benefits of being able to use more than 3.5 gigabytes of RAM more and more as time goes by.

I have 2 Vista/Windows 7 64-bit-capable machines currently, both of which I built in the last year. On one of them, which has a dual-core AMD Athlon 64 x 2 processor, I’ve added a few parts from the old XP box which won’t run under Vista and/or a 64-bit operating system – because I run Windows XP 32-bit on that machine, and intend to continue doing so until 2014, after which I’ll probably retire it, maybe install some flavour of Linux on it perhaps, and use it as a spare machine. The other one currently runs Windows 7 Ultimate RC 64-bit, has an AMD Phenom 3-core processor, 8GB RAM, and is excellent.

So, speaking as a computer-builder, there’s really no reason why anyone shouldn’t run Windows 7 64-bit from a hardware-standpoint.

- There’s another question though: Will software that worked well in 32-bit operation still work in a 64-bit operating system?

The answer to that is: Most likely, yes. 64-bit Windows 7 includes backwards-compatibility for 32-bit programs. (Until Vista; 32-bit Windows included 16-bit backwards-compatibility. (There is a 16-bit Space Invaders game available from this blog that I still play occasionally under XP. (It won’t work in Vista or 7.))If you want it, type “Space Invaders” into the blog’s search-bar.)

If, for whatever reason, your 32-bit program won’t run under a 64-bit Windows 7 operating system, then install Sun Virtual Box, which is free, and run 32-bit Windows inside that. That way you can run your original applications in 32-bit within a 64-bit environment.

In conclusion, then, there really is no reason to install 32-bit Windows 7; certainly not on any new computer, and probably not on any older computer. If you have a machine that will only run XP 32-bit and can’t afford to upgrade both machine and operating system yet than don’t fret: You have until 2014 to save up for and buy a new box with Windows 7 64-bit pre-installed. – Microsoft aren’t planning to drop XP support yet. (- But your old box may give up the ghost before then though.)

What do you plan to do? – Upgrade an old or previously-used machine, or buy new? Do you plan to run a 64-bit operating system?