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I'm thinking about switching the systems in my home from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows. I'm not concerned so much about new OS features as I am about peoples experiences after making the switch. I do a lot of development and use a lot of OS apps and was wondering if people ar having issues.

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vb 6 ide doesn't work on 64-bit. except for that all is good. – svinto Mar 31 '10 at 19:35
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About the best you're going to get from that question is "works for me" or "didn't work for me"... You might want to search around for the apps you actually use to see if they work on x64 or not. – Chris Lively Mar 31 '10 at 19:39
I switched from W7-64 back to w7-32 because I found that some apps that I used had some compatibility issues - like the help system was still in 16-bit & wouldn't run, etc. But then I rebuilt my PC with a MB that would accept 16GB of memory, so for the sake of being upgradeable, I'm back on 64-bit W7, and dealing with the little issues. And FWIW, upgrade to W7. It's much better than Vista was, and going back to XP from 7 is actually a bit uncomfortable. It's a very nice OS. Now if they would only add (real) multiple desktops... – Joe Internet Mar 31 '10 at 23:41
very subjective; converting to CW. really this is better suited to a discussion forum. – quack quixote Apr 7 '10 at 18:40
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Mar 31 '10 at 19:40

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4 Answers

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windows XP 64bit is horrible. If you are going to go you might as well go out to Win7. Everything should work just fine unless you are using old legacy applications/hardware from more then a 6+ years ago that have not been updated property.

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One good thing is that the OS will actually be actively supported by Microsoft.

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WinXP is still supported (though I do believe that MS will soon stop supporting WinXP without SP3). – Michael Burr Mar 31 '10 at 19:38
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up vote 1 down vote

Hardware drivers will be the biggest issue. When I upgraded to Windows 7 64bit I had to use a 32bit XP Mode virtual machine to print to my old printer.

Windows 7 64bit is probably in wider usage than Windows XP 64bit, and so I would guess your luck with finding 64bit drivers would be better with Windows 7 than XP.

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up vote 1 down vote

Start with the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Upgrade Advisor

This will identify apps that just plain have an issue with Windows 7. Then as @ChrisLively mentioned, check your specifc apps for issues with 64 bit OS. Also as mentioned, check for drivers for hardware like scanners, printers, etc. Some hardware is unsupported, especially less expensive host-based printers.

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