Windows 7 - 64 bit or 32 bit?

[hdood]

Well nobody knows because nobody can check this out :whistle:

That's your "out", is it? You have nothing to back up your strange claims, so now we'll just brush it off with "nobody knows."

The reality is that thousands upon thousands of people have access to Windows source code. You don't even need that though, you just need some god damn common sense. Ballmer doesn't sit in his office and pastes random IE code into various parts of Windows while putting "ROFOFFFLLELEEE HEEE HEEE!!!" in the comments. I think you didn't even know that Microsoft actually makes versions of Windows that have no IE, did you? Be honest. You didn't know.

And where are my examples? Explanations? You haven't even explained what on earth you are talking about, you've just made some irrelevant remark about HTML templates.

If it's not obvious to you that 50+ million lines, most of which are ancient legacy code, are beyond human comprehension......

No, because this is just a dumb argument. Why on earth would it be "beyond human comprehension"? The number itself is meaningless. Do the thousands of lines that make up Solitaire affect the memory manager? No, of course not. Are its dependencies well know? Yes. The claim that most of Windows is "ancient legacy code" is also completely absurd.

[kimsland]

Geez with some of the attitudes here its a wonder how we left 16 Bit behind

There are still some real old apps that need 16-Bit still maybe we should have stayed with that too :D

If I buy Windows 7 (ideally Full Ultimate) it'll be 64-Bit

[petrossa]

Whatever hdood. It's off topic anyway. Post your insights on my blog or start a new thread. I'm done with this

[kimsland]

And you won't be saying that again ;)

Edit: Oh you didn't (you edited it out

Edit again, I better say something constructive.

Bring on 128-Bit :)

[hdood]

What's more profitable for Microsoft though, kimsland? Selling different versions of Windows to meet the needs of as many customers as possible, or forcing a move to 64-bit (which actually means that people won't buy it, because switching over is not free, and if they have to ditch all their old solutions then they might want to evaluate non-Microsoft alternatives at the same time).

Really, that's all it comes down to. People should go 64-bit if they can, but Microsoft should still offer an alternative to those that can't.

Whatever hdood. It's off topic anyway. Post your insights on my blog or start a new thread. I'm done with this

No. You can spam your blog as much as you want, I'm not going there. It's absurd that you can't give clear and concise answers to my questions, and won't even comment on my relevant remarks. If you want to bow out of the discussion, then fine, but don't give some bull**** excuse.

[kimsland]

Looking back Windows 95 and 98 was 16-Bit and 32-Bit

But finally XP was 32-Bit only (sorry and 64-Bit option as well)

Lets hope that Windows "8" follows suit and makes it 64-Bit only

[petrossa]

And you won't be saying that again ;)

Edit: Oh you didn't (you edited it out

Edit again, I better say something constructive.

Bring on 128-Bit :)

i typed it only once but when i posted it was there twice. Divine intervention? :D

To me tools should fit their purpose.

Putting a 64bit processor in a Microwave doesn't make it cook any faster.

Running RS232 controlled hardware works better with 8bit then moreBit.

Running 32bit apps only on a 64bit platform doesn't make much sense either.

(for the record i use 64b since xp pro)

[kimsland]

Running RS232 controlled hardware works better with 8bit then moreBit.

Its amazing how many users have no idea what this port is

And here I am, still with my laplink cable :D

[petrossa]

Its amazing how many users have no idea what this port is

And here I am, still with my laplink cable :D

Wrote a custom system that ran a RS232 scanning microfiche camera to scan medieval records. The cameracontrol i wrote based on Dos. Way faster and no bsod's :D

[hdood]

Looking back Windows 95 and 98 was 16-Bit and 32-Bit

But finally XP was 32-Bit only (sorry and 64-Bit option as well)

Lets hope that Windows "8" follows suit and makes it 64-Bit only

? Windows 3 was the last 16-bit version of Windows (and technically speaking, NT was 32-bit since it was designed in the 80s). Windows 95 and above could not run on 16-bit processors (and the differences in the architectures were great enough that you couldn't just have two editions, whereas 32-bit and 64-bit are mostly the same).

[Julius Caro]

I think that even x64 processors retain some native 16-bit compatibility.

[AllMac]

I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 and I'm lovin' it. Runs very stable without any problems whatsoever.

[kimsland]

? Windows 3 was the last 16-bit version of Windows

Well: Windows 98 also included built-in support for 16-bit segment addressing and 16-bit VM

More info h e r e. So there :p

[Ci7]

Geez with some of the attitudes here its a wonder how we left 16 Bit behind

There are still some real old apps that need 16-Bit still maybe we should have stayed with that too :D

If I buy Windows 7 (ideally Full Ultimate) it'll be 64-Bit

by default 32bit & 64bit included in the same package of windows 7

unlike Vista that if you went to get x64(for non-ultimate edtion) you have to request the disc from Microsoft

[code.kliu.org]

If it's not obvious to you that 50+ million lines, most of which are ancient legacy code, are beyond human comprehension......

No, it's not obvious. Because what you are saying is patently, obviously, without a shred of doubt wrong. Have you ever worked on a large (well-organized) software project before? Because if you have, then it should be as clear as day that this is wrong and that it doesn't matter how much "legacy" code there is.

[kimsland]

by default 32bit & 64bit included in the same package of windows 7

Sorry I meant install 64-Bit

[code.kliu.org]

Microsoft should still offer an alternative to those that can't.

I agree. And people should keep in mind that, for the most part, it's trivial to keep making 32-bit and 64-bit versions. All they have to do is swap the compiler and they get a different edition.

This was not true for the 16-bit to 32-bit transition because of the move away from a tight, segmented, and shared memory space with locking, bank switching, and other fun things meant that the transition wasn't as easy as simply recompiling the code, whereas for 32-bit to 64-bit, it is. In terms of code, 16->32 was a paradigm shift (sorry for the buzzword usage), whereas 32->64 was just a relaxation of the limits of 32. Anyone who has programmed for both x86-32 and x86-64 knows that, for the most part, there is little or no additional development cost for maintaining two versions. Just extra scenarios to test and some extra overhead with packaging and such. Heck, even Itanium is as easy as switching a compiler, as long as you pay attention to things like alignment. Any significant development costs (making 32-bit code 64-bit compatible and making a x86-64 compiler) are one-time costs that Microsoft had already paid many years ago.

Which is why I personally would be a bit surprised if Windows 8 goes 64-bit only because, unlike 16->32, it simply doesn't cost Microsoft much to keep both editions around, and there is still good reason to keep a 32-bit Windows around (e.g., many netbooks sold today have 32-bit processors; will Microsoft deny what is today the fastest growing segment an upgrade path for Windows 8? I doubt it!)

Edited August 14, 2009 by code.kliu.org

[petrossa]

No, it's not obvious. Because what you are saying is patently, obviously, without a shred of doubt wrong. Have you ever worked on a large (well-organized) software project before? Because if you have, then it should be as clear as day that this is wrong and that it doesn't matter how much "legacy" code there is.

[off topic] redirect [/off topic] to the source of this discusison

my life is in my profile.

[PGHammer]

by default 32bit & 64bit included in the same package of windows 7

unlike Vista that if you went to get x64(for non-ultimate edtion) you have to request the disc from Microsoft

That was *only* true with Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition.

The OEM versions of Vista were available both ways from launch out. The retail versions of Ultimate included both in the same package, albeit on separate DVDs. Retail versions of Home Premium 64-bit had to be requested; however, this was never true of OEM versions. The avalanche of systems *shipping* with Vista 64-bit didn't start until Gateway teamed with Best Buy to offer their own desktops with either Hoime Premium or Ultimate 64-bit preloaded (Dell and HP quickly followed suit).

[Owen W Veteran]

How about you actually explain more specifically how you believe this is used in Windows. Give some examples.

No **** sherlock, of course all software has bugs. How is that relevant to anything?

No, it's not "quite easy to see" it. The line count in itself is meaningless. Do the millions of lines that make up the .NET framework make any difference to the rest of the OS? No.

How it affects Windows isn't really the problem. The problem is how changes affect third party products. There are thousands of programs that depend on specific undocumented behavior (and bugs). Changing the implementation of a feature could break them, not Windows.

No, it's because THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of third party products depend on the IE components being present to function! How happy do you think people would be if, say, Steam stopped working in Windows 7?

I guess your argument would be sound though, if...................................................................................................... Microsoft didn't make a customizable version of Windows where you can simply leave out IE if you want to, which they do.

You like pretty numbers, but IE has nothing to do with most of the "50+ million lines" that make up Windows. It's not like random parts of Windows decide to call a HTML engine just for the heck of it.

+1 for the steam comment and the IE rendering engine.

[Udedenkz]

I had no problems with Windows XP x64 SP2, it was a very stable Operating System - and was identical to XP x32 on the surface. It had driver support for every component and ran all my 32-bit applications without any problem. I never had a problem with it, but 32-bit applications ran about 0.5 - 1.5 % slower in Windows XP x64 thus (along with me messing it up) I switched back to XP x32.

Microsoft was doing x64 properly since Windows XP.

Windows 7 is a much bigger RAM hog that Windows XP x32 or XP x64 could dream off. So it was good to actually acquire more RAM with x64 architecture than what was compromised with switching to more bloated OS. One thing that was odd though was that Windows 7 uses x32 Windows Media Player by default instead of x64 - so you might have to tweak that back as there is no reason for x32 media players anymore... Overall everything works, driver support is exactly the same it was for Windows XP x64.