What is the Difference: 32 Bit vs 64 Bit Operating System?

Windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit?

When deciding to move from 32 bit operating system to 64 bit, you should first know what 64 bit gets you. You must be aware which softwares run on 64 bit and for them you need a 64 bit operating system. There is no advantage if you are running 32 bit software on 64 bit operating system. Also you won't be able to run 16 bit software on 64 bit operating system (not supported by 64 bit) and for that you must stay on a 32 bit operating system. This is only a matter in case you have some valuable software which has not been upgraded yet for a long time, like hand-made custom software.

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What does 64 Bit offers you?

More bits gives you access to more memory locations. The processor can call more number of addresses in memory (RAM). Thus your system will support a larger RAM. The maximum amount of memory a 32-bit processor can address is 4 GB. While a 64-bit processor and the 64-bit operating system that run on them can address 17, 179, 869,184 GB (16 Exabyte’s) of RAM. Thus, you can have a larger memory support.

32-Bit was introduced in Windows NT in 1993 but not evolved till Windows 2000 and XP. Windows 9x and 32-bit softwares but in a hybrid mode, and that was one of the reasons that Windows 9x were not stable.

64-Bit Windows became in function in Windows XP and Vista was further serious attempt of Microsoft towards 64-bit computing. So due to increasing demands for RAM users would love to shift to 64-Bit rather than staying at 32-bit.

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64-Bit's Support for 32-Bit applications

White 64-Bit operating system supports most of the 32-bit applications without any problem and extra software installed, it is not compatible with 32-bit hardware drivers or utilities (like Windows Explorer Extensions eg; context menu add-ons.). This means you need a 64-bit driver for every device on your PC. This can be sometime a hard job (finding support for 64-bit for all the hardware on your machine) especially for older computers having older hardwares.

Performance Increase in 64 Bit

64-Bit softwares running on 64-bit Operating system has been known to run as much as 10% faster than 32-bit. Soon there will be a time that industries will no more support 32-bit softwares, like Microsoft is planning to release a 64-bit only operating system.

About The Author :

Mohammad Roman is professionally a web developer, working as a Lecturer in Kohat University of Science & Technology. His specialties are in ASP.Net using C# but he can also handle projects in PHP.He is a Gold Star Contributor at our Blog.