Which opetrating system is best 32 bit or 64 bit ?

[krishnanayak]

Hello everyone someone tells which operating system is good 32 bit or 64 bit. Because i installed 64 bit win 7 ultimate in my laptop but some software did not work properly then after 32 bit win 7 installed now all software work properly so tell me which operating system is best.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Hello everyone someone tells which operating system is good 32 bit or 64 bit. Because i installed 64 bit win 7 ultimate in my laptop but some software did not work properly then after 32 bit win 7 installed now all software work properly so tell me which operating system is best.

With today's hardware it's generally better to run x64 Win7 because it can run both 32 and 64 bit programs, however a limitation of that is MS did not include the 16 Bit (1980's apps) instruction set so those old programs can't be ran, they did include 16 Bit in their 32 Bit Win7 which might be your problem with those programs that don't run. The programs that don't work on x64 Win7 is that because they're 16 Bit?

[dilettante]

The truth is a 32-bit OS can be said to "work better" even on modern CPUs. It will make far more efficient use of CPU cache and memory bandwidth, 32-bit compiled code is smaller, and everything is more efficient all around.

Up until... you are doing a lot of work with double precision floating point data.

There is some argument in favor of 64-bit's ability to address more RAM. In reality what ends up happening in desktop systems is that the additional RAM gets partially burned up by 64-bit pointers and addresses and such and a lot of what is left ends up being used as disk cache. It is rare that a program benefits from being 64-bit code, so much so that Visual Studio only comes in 32-bit editions even though it includes compilers that emit 64-bit object code (themselves being 32-bit programs!).

But yes, another issue is that 64-bit Windows only has WOW64 (for running 32-bit software) and does not include NTVDM/WOWEXEC (for running 16-bit software).

[Tanner_H]

The truth is a 32-bit OS can be said to "work better" even on modern CPUs. It will make far more efficient use of CPU cache and memory bandwidth, 32-bit compiled code is smaller, and everything is more efficient all around.

I see someone hasn't been paying attention to the previous discussions on this topic!

64-bit CPUs have twice as many general-purpose registers, twice as many XMM registers, a wider bus, additional ASM features, and improved security (via the NX bit) compared to their 32-bit counterparts.

From an OS perspective, they not just support more addressable memory, they provide more RAM for 32-bit applications, too, as they automatically allot 4 GB of memory to enabled 32-bpp applications (whereas those same applications cannot claim more than 3 GB under 32-bit Windows). Processes are also allotted additional threads and handles on 64-bit Windows.

32-bit OSes do not generically "work better" on modern CPUs in any way, shape or form. There is literally no reason for the average user to use a 32-bit PC + OS (or mobile phone + OS, for that matter) in the modern world.

@krishnanayak: this topic has been discussed in more detail in this thread.

[dilettante]

It doesn't really matter anyway.

Once you have drunk the Kool-Aid and bought an x64 system you may as well load it up with RAM and install a 64-bit version of Windows.

The only snags then are things like:

• The inability to run old 16-bit code (which is becoming pretty rare now) we've already belabored,
• Lack of 64-bit drivers for some hardware (still a problem even for some Intel chipsets today),
• The occasional snag if 64-bit Office is installed (can't use 32-bit add-in DLLs and such but hardly anyone is writing these in VB6 anymore).