Windows 7 64bit vs 32bit

[brayden]

Not all BIOS would list that i suppose. I've never seen it in my Asus BIOS and i'm on 64bit.

[Polkadot]

Bottom line is: whether your CPU works under 64bit mode is a mute point. MOST of the programs that I want to use, will NOT run on my 64 bit system. 64 bits is the wave of the future, but the future has not yet arrived. If you are building a new system, think towards the future, not the past...many apps will not work on it (yet), and some will NEVER work on it. Because of some of the 'security' issues built into the 64b kernel, some coders will be years away from building 64bit compatible versions, some will NEVER. Just as many coders never made the transition from DOS to Windows, many will never make the transition from 32 to 64 bit (M$'s 'debug' fell by the wayside, as they devoted much effort converting from 16 bit to 32 bit, and it seemed like I was the only guy using it, so they abandoned it).
My sugestion would be to build a 64 bit system, but run it @ 32 unless you NEED 64 bit apps. Eventually Hirens, and everybody else will adapt. In the mean time you have a dual function machine that is foreward-looking.

[newprouser]

Forget 128-bit Windows 8, 64-bit Windows 7 Yet to Get All the Love

Forget about the possibility of Windows 8, the next iteration of the Windows operating system planned for 2011 – 2012 getting support for 128-bit processor architectures. Fact is that the translation to 64-bit CPUs is still in full swing, and Windows 7 is yet to get all the love. While 64-bit is the future, 32-bit computers continue to indicate strong resilience. And it is clear that customers continuing to run machines with x86 processors are not necessarily in a hurry to throw their old computers out and buy x64 PCs. The initial hurdles that have managed to plague x64 Windows platforms, including the lack of driver and hardware support and application-compatibility problems, continue to reverberate from the past even after the majority of issues have been dealt with.

Joe Faulhaber, from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center revealed that Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 was downloaded over 1.5 million times in just the first week on the market. Out of all the machines protected by the free security solution from Microsoft, only a third of those also running Windows 7 feature the 64-bit edition of the operating system.

“The Windows 7 numbers are spectacular for an operating system that hasn't yet released for global availability. Even better, about 1/3rd of Windows 7 Microsoft Security Essentials machines are 64-bit, which is even more resistant to malware than 32-bit due to PatchGuard,” Faulhaber noted.

Back in August 2008, Microsoft revealed that the number of 64-bit computers connecting to Windows Update had suffered a dramatic increase compared with that of 32-bit machines. But taking into consideration the statistics provided by Faulhaber, it appears that the number of x86 computers still outweighs that of x64 PCs.

from softpedia