I get this call a few times a week. Someone is trying to run software that is not compatible with the 64 bit version of Windows Vista.
I’ll try to keep this as non-technical as possible since it can easily get very confusing and very technical really fast.
Besides all of the different flavors of Vista as in Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, etc., etc. there’s another option of whether it’s the 32 bit or the 64 bit version of the above flavors. There are programs out there that will lose functionality if you try to run them on the 64 bit version of Vista.
What do I mean by 64 bit or 32 bit?
It has to do with the size of the chunks of data that the computer can process at one time. Generally speaking, if your computer hardware can process chunks of data in 64 bit chunks, you’re better off having an operating system that can feed the computer the data in 64 bit chunks. The computer can process data in 32 bit or smaller chunks, but it’s like driving a race car through a school zone. Sure, you’re not hurting anything, but you could be going so much faster.
If you have a computer with a core duo processor, you will most likely have a 64 bit version.
Confused?
Chances are, none of this matters much to you, unless you happen to be running an older application, that feed data in 32 bit or smaller chunks to your computer expecting 64 bit chunks. You may, or may not lose some functionality, but you will definitely lose some speed.
How can you tell if you’re running 64 bit instead of 32 bit version of Vista?
This is where Apple Computer, of all places, has better information than Microsoft does. Here’s how you can tell what version of Vista you’re running:
- Right-click on Computer in the Start menu and click Properties to open the System Properties window.
- Click the General tab to see the operating system version information.
Here’s a picture:
The last 6 things that I’ll say are this:
- Keep your OS fully patched and up to date
- You must have a good anti-virus program on your computer
- Backup
- Run some kind of registry checker every so often
- Backup
- Did I mention to backup your data regularly?
That’s all for now. Let me know what you think about this post. Cheers!
> but you could be going so much faster.
This is not true. You won’t notice the difference unless you benchmark it and your app is optimised.
You can probably find the version from here too:
Start> Run> winver
Which is why I said “could” and not “would” or “will”