Windows 7 32 or 64 bit?
 

Having one of those Senior moments...
We have the opportunity to purchase second hand a tower comp utilising W7 in 64 bit format... My question is one of compatibility... will files, pics, videos etc 'recorded on a 32 bit W7 be readable on the 64 bit machine (and vice versa?)
Also will peripherals currently used on the 32 bit machine (printer, scanner) work with the 64 bit machine
Thanks

Files will almost always be compatible. In the worst case, you can install the 32-bit software that created them on 64-bit Windows.

Drivers may not be available in 64-bit for old hardware, and may not be available in 32-bit for new hardware.

The only things almost guaranteed not to work on 64-bit Windows are 16-bit programs, which are no longer supported in 64-bit mode. However, you can probably run them in a VM, or DOS emulator.

Thank you.!

When I moved to 7/64, everything worked from the very beginning. I know sfa about puters.
Win itself sorted out the drivers.
I bought one of their transfer cable thingies, (google it) and all went smoothly.

Drivers for peripherals are indeed a possible problem. However, you can search the manfr's website to see if there are appropriate drivers, and also search the Windows 7 hardware compatibility list (may be hard to find now) to see if the driver is included in Windows 7 itself.

In general, any 32-bit application will run fine on 64-bit (but not vice-versa).

Interestingly, MS actually recommend that Office 2010 / 2013 32-bit versions should be installed (unless you absolutely need the 64-bit version, think > 65,000 rows / columns in Excel), due to problems with compatibility of VBA & macros.

SD

Thanks guys... really appreciated
pp

We use a Scada software application (32-bit) that has run on Windows versions since W95, and now up to W7, but in recent times with 64-bit machines we have never found a means to run it on 64-bit machines. Using a licence key we produce a runtime version for customers, but then they need to have 32-bit machines also.

The screen message displayed is;
"The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher."

You may find not all 32-bit software will run on 64-bit and if it is specialty software it may pay to trial it first.

That would tend to imply one of three things:

1. It's not actually a 32-bit program.
2. It's trying to install 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit system.
3. Windows is doing something completely bizarre again.

I like the sound of #1.