32-bit vs. 64-bit Windows 7?

Question

I have VMware 2.06 w/ Windows XP. it's on a Late 2008 15" 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro (Unibody) with 4GB of RAM. I am considering upgrading to VMware 3 and replacing XP to Windows 7. Which version, the 32-bit or 64-bit, of Windows 7 should I buy/install? I really only use Office, Firefox, DVDShrink/AnyDVD and Nero on the PC side.

As a separate question, is there ANY improvement (or other important reason) why I should either stick with version 2.06 or upgrade to version 3? everything works now; I want to know if it's worth the upgrade time/trouble/expense, or if it would just slow down what I have now, which is sometimes the case with upgrades.

Answer 1

Why even bother with running Windows at all? All the apps you mention have OS X versions or equivalents.

Microsoft Office is native on OS X as is Firefox. Why shell out to a VM when you can have native speed?

The built in disk utility in OS X can do basic CD/DVD creation and burning. If you want more than that then you can use something like Toast.

Handbrake is an excellent replacement for DVDShrink/AnyDVD and will make fully iTunes compatible m4v files.

I use Windows at work and have a MacBook Pro at home, I originally had a Windows XP VM on my Mac but after a few months found that the OS X native apps were every bit as good. You just have to give them a chance. I've since deleted the XP VM from my Mac and reclaimed the disk space.

Answer 2

VMWare Fusion version 3 is a very significant upgrade and in my opinion well worth the additional cost. I would also very strongly advise, regardless of whether it's in a VM or not, that all new Windows 7 installations be 64-bit, now is the time to change - all previous obstacles to going to 64-bit have effectively gone away. And certainly the combination of Windows 7 64-bit inside a VMWare Fusion 3 VM is a wise choice.

Answer 3

This is not a direct answer but might still be handy to keep in mind. I use Parallels V4.0.3848 rather than VMware Fusion and run Visual Studio on Windows, which is pretty resource intensive. When my XP virtual HDD file became corrupted due to a physical HDD fault I thought I'd give Win 7 a try. The 32 bit version runs fairly well, provided I had give it plenty of RAM (2GB, which more than I care to take away from OS X). The 64 bit version is very unstable with the same configuration. Both were installed from the same medium. I'm back with XP now because it continues to do what I require of it, without needing the same resources as Win 7.

Answer 4

I agree with most of the other posters however will say if it isn't broken; don't fix it. With the exception of Office most of those can be happily replaced by native Mac apps (@Ausmith1) without the fairly large performance hit of having Windows installed in a VM environment.

Are there compelling features in Windows 7 that you need and can't live without? Why spend so much money on it and time and risk etc.

That said I did see massive improvements in VMware 3 and if you are going to go down that path it probably is worth it.

Two alternatives to consider;

1) Pickup a small cheap netbook and remote desktop into it, bonus of no performance hit on your Mac at all. Probably cost the same as a full Windows 7 license anyway.

2) Wait for Office 2010 which is supposedly going to include working versions of Excel and Outlook (but I'll believe it when I see it).

Answer 5

Personal opinion - I have a Macbook (White) 2.4GHz, 4GB of RAM and VMware Fusion 2.0.6.

I tried Windows 7 x64 when it came out and it worked, but ran a fair bit slower than my XP build (which is considerably slimmed down). Since I only use Office and the occasional Windows application, I just stick with XP for the most part and jump into 7 when I need to talk someone through something on the phone.

I haven't tried Fusion 3 yet but if you have Snow Leopard, it is meant to utilise the 64-bit power (even if you're not running a 64-bit kernel) and also provide better graphics support for Windows 7.

If you want to run 7 or just have a desire to keep up-to-date, I would say go for v3. Otherwise, stick with XP under 2.0.6

Answer 6

One thing you need to know about Windows 7 is that XPMode breaks VMware. There's a blog article from VMware describing the issues, in that XPMode assumes its the only hypervisor and leaves the CPU in a bad state preventing VMware from getting a look in.

But, as you're running VMware anyway, all your problems should be inconsequential. You don't need XPMode and should get better support for your old apps anyway (ie 64-bit Windows 7 doesn't run a few things even in XP mode, especially games).

If you're not running games, I'd go with 64-bit, but really - is there any reason to upgrade to Windows 7 over XP?