[robina80]

what version of windows 7 shall i install as the retail box consists of both ver, i cant decide, my computer can support 64bit and ive heard all the program etc are backwards compatible ie games, office etc, what you think?!

[xactly]

Personally 64bit should be avoided like the plauge, there are many pieces of software that don't support 64bit and even drivers. There is no performance increase either, the only rhing going for it is its ability to adress more than 3.25Gb of memory.

Go with 32 bit.

[philthomas]

I cannot say that I agree with xactly ..... I have been running the RC x64 version for a few months with no problems and have just installed the Retail x64 version, without problems.
There maybe be the odd driver that isn't found, if the system is old or has lesser known parts, but my experience has been positive. I also installed the x64 version on a Fujitsu Laptop and that worked fine too.

So far all of my software runs fine, including Office 2003, Nero 7, SuperAntiSpyware, AVG, SpywareBlaster, WinRar, Acronis Disk Director,Acronis True Image and a few more.

Dont confuse this with the awful XP x64 version ..... W7 has come a long way.

[xactly]

There are quite a few application which do not work with 64bit (I am running 32bit at the moment so I cannot tell you which they are).

64bit is good for machines a few years old, anymore than this and there are a lot of issues with finding drivers.

I have not had XP x64 but I have had Vista x64 and the lack of support of driver for 64bit is diabolical.

It depends entirely on what software you use and whether your PC is supported with the 64bit drivers.

[philthomas]

If you suspect that specific software is likely to be a problem, simply elect for the Pro or Ultimate editions .... these have XP Compatibilty mode, but generally speaking, most stuff that runs on Vista will run on W7. Also any serious software developer, will soon have fixes, should compatibilty issues become an issue.

Why limit yourself to x32 if x64 is available to you ..... if for any reason you hit problems, just revert to x32, as all Retail boxes contain both disks.

[Carbon]

I agree with Phil. The vast majority of applications work properly on 64-bit systems - the only problem you may run into is difficulties with very old 16-bit applications as well as device drivers for very, very old hardware, like parallel port printers. It's easy to think that 64-bit sucks, because 64-bit XP sucked pretty horribly, but from Vista onwards it was much better because past Vista's adoption, manufacturers started writing 64-bit drivers. After all, do you think people in 2002 or 2003 were even considering that anybody on a home system would ever have 4GB of RAM?

For a desktop system, 64-bit is by far the way to go. It is very difficult to run into any sort of scenario where you have difficulties - I've tried, and I've found 64-bit Vista and 7 flawless.

[Haun]

if you can tell us what processor you have we can tell you if it supports 64-bit.

If it does you will surely want 64-bit because it will be more efficient and your system will run more smoothly

[Carbon]

Every CPU made since the Pentium 4 supports 64-bit, and who has 4GB of RAM on those old systems anyway?

And 64-bit systems are not "more efficient" nor do they "run more smoothly" except by virtue of the fact you're addressing another 500MB-750MB of memory on a 4GB machine which obviously has some performance impact. In fact, they're inherently less efficient, because the executable has to have registers twice as large to address all that extra memory.

[xactly]

Originally Posted by Carbon

... In fact, they're inherently less efficient, because the executable has to have registers twice as large to address all that extra memory.

Exactly, 32 bit is somewhat more efficient than 64 bit.

[philthomas]

X64 is the way to go, unless you have an old system.

If you plan to have 4gb Ram or more in the future, you will see improvements in multi-tasking and other applications that are memory intensive, such as CAD or Video encoding.

X64 not only utilises the extra Ram, it handles it more efficiently.