Comment Feed for 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7? (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Brandon Paddock — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:22:57 GMT

I am all 64-bit on all of my machines... except for my test machine at work since it's generally easier to debug.

My laptop (Sony Vaio Z) and my HP TouchSmart at home both came with 64-bit versions of Vista.

Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

harumscarum — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:28:48 GMT

32 on home because I don't want to deal with the possibility of any issues (which is why Im still on XP).

Work well that just depends on the client.

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Charles — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:08:48 GMT

Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:58:15 GMT

IMHO one of the main reasons why there hasn't been a great move to 64bit because developers on the whole haven't taken advantage of 64bit in their code because they want their code to run on as many machines as possible.

Also because a lot of code doesn't have much to gain from switching to 64-bit.

I know it's a bit faster sometimes, and it's required for in-process plugins for 64-bit apps, and a lot easier for admin tools that need to see the real machine not the virtualised one, but those things are often not that important. Not many apps need to access gigs of RAM either.

I worked on trading / market risk systems until recently and the only thing we had that routinely pushed the 2gig boundary was an Excel/VBA sheet that really should've had a bullet put in its brain, and been converted to a proper app, by then. :) (I think I'll be sad if the 64-bit version of Office gives that sheet a new lease of life. :) )

Not saying "64-bit sucks". It doesn't suck at all and some stuff requires and/or really benefits from it. But some 64-bit versions of apps seem to be made just for the sake of removing the '*' from Task Manager. :)

...Then there's all the Delphi apps. Apparently Delphi is finally going to get a 64-bit compiler this year.

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

David Oliver — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:41:09 GMT

Windows 2008 R2 is going to be 64bit only !

"First and foremost, 32-bit is done. History. Archives. Windows Server 2008 R2 is the first Windows OS platform to go 64-bit only, and frankly it was high time. Customers have been unable to purchase a 32-bit server CPU for over two years now, and the advancements in CPU architectures really dictated that we squeeze as much performance out of customers’ hardware purchases as possible. The move to 64-bit is a first step."

Also guys remember there is two variant's of 64bit machine, x86-64 (x64) and ia64.

IMHO one of the main reasons why there hasn't been a great move to 64bit because developers on the whole haven't taken advantage of 64bit in their code because they want their code to run on as many machines as possible.

Another and more negitive reason is because developers aren't in the habit of working with IT Pro's to work out what would be the best configuration of server for their code to run on when it goes live. When the configuration of servers is of the upmost importance as common issues such as poor performance can be avoided by a simple conversation at design time between developers and IT Pro's.

Developers also say that they don't have environment the same as live to develop on, when infact this is mistake 1, fortunately technologies such as virtualisation have made this easier to achieve.

However the first thing some developers do, I have noticed, it start to open up security and lift restrictions on their indentical development servers, as soon as this is done, it's no longer the same as live.

So here is the challenge, how many of you use 'Run As ...' instead of changing security settings? - Blowdart, now would be a good time for you to talk about development security best practice (I watched Blowdart do an excellent presentation on this one)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

PaoloM — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:39:20 GMT

billg might be happier if it WASNT available - and that the world is now 64 bit - and you can have... 32 bit ...VISTA for your "sub standard pc eXPerience

Why?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Dorian Muthig — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:26:24 GMT

I miss the DOS days for that. It gave you this elitist feeling about being special for being able to use a computer at the age of 4. Today, two year olds know how to play computer games... :D

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

ManipUni — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:05:32 GMT

Well hopefully that won't be something we will have to worry about when Windows 8 ships :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Bas — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:03:42 GMT

(Mostly this is just me being selfish as a developer but the differences also confuse users, e.g. "I installed a 32-bit video codec but it doesn't work in this 64-bit program" or vice versa. Ugh. People shouldn't have to understand that, but that's life I guess.)

Agreed. Windows was always about not having to deal with technical crap like that, IMHO.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:00:25 GMT

I'll be happy when the hassle of building/testing both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of apps goes away, but I think it'll be a while yet. :)

Win9x's death meant we didn't have to build ANSI + Unicode anymore but before there was time to celebrate 64-bit became important. Curses!

I'm hoping the idea of Windows for ARM never takes off for similar reasons.

(Mostly this is just me being selfish as a developer but the differences also confuse users, e.g. "I installed a 32-bit video codec but it doesn't work in this 64-bit program" or vice versa. Ugh. People shouldn't have to understand that, but that's life I guess.)

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Bas — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:59:38 GMT

Probably gonna stick with 32 bit on my laptop, where I absolutely need everything to work, but the living room PC will probably get an x64 edition.

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Paul Smith — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:49:14 GMT

My desktops will be 64-bit (and already are). My Dell Mini 9 and LE1700 Tablet are running 32-bit.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

me — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:42:22 GMT

billg might be happier if it WASNT available - and that the world is now 64 bit - and you can have... 32 bit ...VISTA for your "sub standard pc eXPerience ;)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

PaoloM — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:58:41 GMT

My netbook is very happy that Windows 7 has a 32 bits version available.

Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Sven Groot — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:49:31 GMT

Just because it has more cores doesn't make it faster. The dual core machine might have a higher speed per core, a newer architecture (e.g. Core i7 vs. Core 2), more cache. Or it could be other factors: faster motherboard (many people underestimate how much that does for your system's overall performance), more/faster RAM, faster hard disk.

Depending on what kind of tasks you run and whether these are optimised for multiple cores (or even if they're CPU-bound at all) there could be any number of reasons why the dual core machine wins. But I sincerely doubt whether the 64 bit OS is a deciding factor. It might make a small amount of difference, but something near what you're seeing is virtually impossible just from 64 bit alone, all other factors being equal (which they're not in your case).

Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

me — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:28:22 GMT

im still trying to figure out how 2 machines - both running 7 - one with 4 cores - one with 2 cores - and the 2 core wins across the board

happens its 64 bits

* i keep getting specs wrong - but apparently this OLD machine is suppose to be faster than the new one... its not (64?)

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

ManipUni — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:10:36 GMT

x86-64 doesn't double the speed. It can offer performance improvements however. But on the other side of the coin there used to be few drivers for it or 64bit compiled apps (which is where you'll see the speed boost).

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

magicalclick — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:34:41 GMT

64bits only for me. 32bits about to die anyway, Win7 is the last version supporting 32bits. It is not about why not using 32bits. It is more about why not switching to 64bits.

Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

me — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:06:39 GMT

64 bit seems to have major speed differences - like double the speed
(*WORKING speed - not openinng speed) oomph power etc

that said - there seems to be FEAR surrounding it
true some stuff doesnt work (but thats more due to win7 than 64 bit)

i wonder why the 64 bit jump - is so riddled with FUD (you know what that stands for...why?)

edit: why isnt win7 64 bit only? "double the speed"! *was there a 16bit win95?

every app i have loaded on it..works . if any one is slow on 64 its MS ?

(adoption i mean)

ps - if gates was in his hay day - would he have said - 64 bit only? i bet he would have
(soul-less, idiot, non-creative, useless ballmer ahem)

oops did i say that...ummm

Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Sven Groot — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:07:34 GMT

x64 has been extremely stable for me. The only reason my reliability score is lower than 10 is because of crashes in my own applications during testing, and that has nothing to do with Windows. :)

Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

PerfectPhase — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:19:33 GMT

Interesting, my experience really has been the opposite! I up about 8 in Win7-x64, would be higher if it wasn't for VS crashing at startup all the time!

Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Mr. Arkadin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:15:48 GMT

Yeah, if the bits double so do the crashes.

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Zian Choy — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:02:07 GMT

I'm using 32-bit because I have enough crashes and problems already (reliability score of 5.74 under Vista) and I don't need more.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

LeoDavidson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:48:02 GMT

:) And the 32-bit binaries are in the folders with names ending in "64" while the 64-bit binaries are in the ones ending in "32". Confused? good!

Re: 64 or 32 Bit Windows 7?

Mr. Arkadin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:11:44 GMT

I've been on x64 since the Pentium D came out; about four years, I guess. I didn't switch because I needed more RAM, I switched because I needed more stability, and XP x64 provided that and more with the shared Windows Server 2003 codebase. It became obvious real quick that the desktop OS quality control at MS really sucked back then compared to the server line. But since I'd been on Me before XP I wasn't complaining too loud.

12 GB of RAM and no swapfile is small heaven.