Perhaps the official W7 Upgrade Chart has been the cause of some confusion:
Only for people not smart enough to read a simple table....
Especially after realizing you've blown $600 for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions to accommodate your application sets.
Microsoft either ships both x86 and x64 in the same kit, or offers a free (or handling cost) option to get the x64 disc if you have an x86 only kit.
This is complete nonsense about $600 to buy both, and I'm sure that you know that. I hope that you're embarrassed for trying to pull that deceit off...
Which applications require 32 bit Windows to run and which require 64 bit?
Almost all x86 applications run fine on x64. (I don't say "all", because someone will find some poorly written app that will die.)
For Windows 7, just go with the x64 version. All your 32-bit apps will run fine, and any apps that are 64-bit will run a bit faster.
IA64 is not relevant to desktops.
The problem I am having, is finding device drivers, and their apps, to be compatible with x64. If I want to run my 64-bit apps, I'll need W7 64-bit. If I want to run my devices, I'll need W7 32-bit.
Any devices with the Vista logo will have both x86 and x64 drivers. If you have old hardware, and need to use the XP drivers, then you may find the need to use x86.
For the majority of consumers, this is a non-issue.
That is messed up.
The x86 and x64 notations are all but gibbersish to the average user
The "average user" doesn't upgrade, she'll go to Best Buy and get a shiny new system with Windows7 x64 already installed, with all the drivers.
She wants something new - just check the box for the Vista/Win7 logo. If it's there, it has the x64 bits that she needs.
More than half of the current Vista retail systems are x64 - and the sky hasn't fallen. Any system with 4 GiB of RAM will have an x64 OS, even if the ad copy doesn't mention it. Many of the 2 GiB and 3 GiB systems are x64 as well - so that a point-of-purchase upgrade to 4 GiB or 8 GiB or 12 GiB will do what the customer expects. Microsoft, in spite of all that Apple people say, really has gotten through the 64-bit transition in fine shape. Apple's still a day late, dollar short in 64-bit support.
Still too many versions of windows. I thought they got that figured out.
It should be:
Windows 7 Personal &
Windows 7 Professional.
Essentially a home version and server version.
The "server version" of Windows 7 is called "Windows Server 2008 R2". It is only available in x64, and has far more server features than any desktop version.
This troll again ? Please, come back when you get new material. Snow Leopard has massive changes under the hood. Things you can't release in a mere service pack (which are just security and bug fixe releases).
Windows 7 on the under hand is Vista with a new taskbar. Windows 7 doesn't have that many new features, as most of the improvements have gone into Vista itself.
This is the guy under the bridge calling someone else a troll...
Only the fanboys believe the "Windows 7" is "Vista SP3" tripe. It's far more than a service pack, and a far larger jump than 10.6.
(Note that when Microsoft (Ballmer, et al) are talking to developers - the story line is that "it's a minor change from Vista, no need to rewrite your stuff". When Microsoft talks to end users, they talk about the new UI changes and other huge improvements in the user experience. Don't take the former out of context and imply that it applies to the latter....)
There's a reason Windows 7 is just NT 6.1 (Vista was NT 6.0).
Yes, the reason is that Windows has modern opaque kernel APIs, and huge changes under the hood can be compatible with older kernel extensions. Because Windows 7 did not make major changes to kernel APIs, it did not warrant changing the Major ID in the version number.
Did you know that many XP drivers will load and run fine in Windows 7? How about running Tiger kernel extensions in Snow Leopard
!!
