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Please, to those in the know, I've a quick technical question.
If your computer has a 64-bit possessor, and you have Windows for 32-bit, but you want to upgrade to a 64-bit operating system, are there any other requirements, and if so how would one find out if ones computer already possesses these requirements, if one were so inclined?
Thanks in advance,
CmacQ
I would say you are good to go.
Install 64bit system and find out. If you have some exotic hardware you could check if there are drivers available for 64bit system before you install.
It could be an issue if you use software that is Win32bit-only (at least, that was a problem for quite a while after the first 64bit came out), but nowadays almost all software supports 64bit or at least has workarounds to get it working.
Check for drivers in advance, as suggested by LorDBulA and you should be fine:2thumbsup:
Right,
thanks you both for the help. It’s very appreciated as I’m in the market to get GIS and the Online operation manual for a prospective program makes the point that the performance of 64-bit version, which requires a 64-bit Windows, is far superior.
CmacQ
I will be hijacking this thread to point everything to the fact THAT THERE IS LIFE APART FROM THE EB FORUMS
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=132
Here, for example.
May I suggest you consider dual-booting? I personally run a 32-bit version of vista for most purposes (I know I got lucky, bizarrely enough vista is actually more compatible with the stuff I run than XP is :laugh4:), and a 64-bit XP for performance/gaming. Makes life much easier...
Just google if you're interested, plenty of good information out there.
Cheers
Very interesting. How do you switch between the two? And I’ve 32-bit vista now so why avoid 64-bit vista?
The bootloader should offer you the possibility to choose. The default option (usually the latest installed OS) gets chosen automatically after X secs, but you can press the up/down keys to manually select the one you want (and prevent the timer from reaching 0).
Just press enter when you've selected the one you want (usually the options to choose from is 2 times the amount of OSes on your system), and the system will load that OS in the selected modus as if you didn't have a multiboot system.
EDIT: Also: AMD64 proccessor typically are capable of emulating 32bit mode (which is how you can run a 32bit OS on it in the first place ~;), so it shouldn't be too bad with drivers & stuff).