32-bit on 64-bit system

[Walt]

Hi everyone,

Today I was looking at my task manager and found out that almost every program I downloaded is 32-bit. I don't know why this is because it automaticly downloads to the right version (thought I). Is was wondering if this was normal or a bad thing?

Thanks

[You_are_a_cunt]

Many applications are x32 to provide compatibility with x32 systems and, more often than not, there is no x64 version of the applications because there isn't much reason for one (saves time and money on the development side).

[Mira Yurizaki]

19 minutes ago, Walt said:

Hi everyone,

Today I was looking at my task manager and found out that almost every program I downloaded is 32-bit. I don't know why this is because it automaticly downloads to the right version (thought I). Is was wondering if this was normal or a bad thing?

Thanks

64-bit Windows is backwards compatibility with 32-bit applications. This is fine. As stated, there's no real reason to go to 64-bit. It doesn't magically make anything run better if it ran just fine in 32-bit.

 

The only thing that needs to be 64-bit are your drivers. At least I think they do.

[C2dan88]

32bit software will run just fine on 64bit OS however do note your 32bit software will not be able to consumer more then 4GB of memory.

[typographie]

21 minutes ago, Walt said:

I don't know why this is because it automaticly downloads to the right version (thought I).

If there is a 64-bit version of a bit of downloaded software, it is typically offered as an alternative to a 32-bit version (7zip comes to mind as one example). If there is only one Windows version offered, it's likely to be 32-bit to guarantee broader compatibility.

[Sniperfox47]

1 hour ago, C2dan88 said:

32bit software will run just fine on 64bit OS however do note your 32bit software will not be able to consumer more then 4GB of memory.

32-bit pieces of software can be large address aware and access more than 4GB of RAM. Not much software does so, since for most applications there's no point, but it's possible.

 

1 hour ago, Walt said:

~snip~

As mentioned above this is normal. 32-bit applications also use less memory and storage space than 64-bit applications as well (unless pretty specifically optimized) so are useful in applications that would be run on low-ram/low-storage devices like Windows tablets.

 

The amount of performance gain from 64-bit processing and the higher precision for most apps is negligible, and may actually be completely offset by the increased RAM usage so for a lot of apps it's simply not worth the time.