Windows 7 will be released only 3 days from now. If there are a bunch of machines
1) Quad Core, 4GB machines
2) Core2Duo, 2GB machines
3) HyperThread 3.2GHz, 1GB machines
are there pros and cons to installing 32-bit vs 64-bit Windows 7 on them?
For example, the 4GB machines might benefit from being able to use all 4GB instead of about 3.2GB if it is 32-bit.
But 64-bit version is said to have wrappers for many apps, so will they run slower as a result?
Besides, I think if a machine has XP, then you can consider keeping it as XP (especially since 512MB machines cannot install Win7). But if a machine has Vista, it is definitely good to upgrade? (unless you want to save the money if the machine is not going to be used too often or only as a second machine).
Best Answer
Windows 7 64-bit will munch more memory than 32-bit, but it's rock-solid from the past 2 months of personal use. I've also placed it on my media center (the 32-bit Win7 edition) and it is quite fast considering only 1GB of RAM is available, and a low-end AMD X2 is powering that machine.
It's a great step up from Windows XP, and features an environment which receives more updates, more support, as opposed to XP, which will stop receiving support later down the line, not to mention something I read recently about an older bug in it which wasn't going to get fixed.