[AccessD] Windows 7 64 bit

Hi John

Yes, I forgot that for a moment, the higher ram capacity is the "unique selling point" of 64-bit systems.

/gustav


>>> jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com 21-01-2010 13:58 >>>
Gustav,

 > As I don't see any true reason to run 64-bit - it just happened to be installed on the machine, 
and I have yet to see a 64-bit desktop application with a difference...snip

The biggest "true reason" is memory.  It is trivial and cheap to have 8 gigs of ram on a machine 
now.  X32 can't effectively use this, but X64 can.

Even "4 gigs" of ram in an x32 environment ends up being somewhat less than 4 gigs.  In some cases 
it can be a LOT less, particularly if you have a video card with a large on-board ram.

I have seen Vista x32 machines with "4 gigs" which ended up with well under three gigs.  X64 gives 
you back the memory you paid for.

I admit that most of use don't absolutely have to have even 4 gigs but the power user may, and the 
video editor or photo editor or that kind of app absolutely should.

Additionally, Vista likes to load as much of itself in RAM as it can.  The more memory you have the 
more of Vista (or Win 7) can load.  Again, you only see the effects when Vista needs to access those 
parts of itself but it is in fact somewhat faster to not have to wait for Vista to page in the parts 
it needs.

And finally, in x32 Windows will only ever give 2 gigs of memory to an application.  That is a hard 
coded max.  It does that in order to reserve 2 gigs for the OS, hardware mapping and so forth.  All 
of that goes away with X64.

So there are in fact real reasons that X64 is a better OS.  While Grandma may never notice the 
difference, I almost certainly will.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 


Gustav Brock wrote:
> Hi Drew
> 
> Thanks for these useful tips!
> 
> We are currently struggling with a move including some 16-bit apps and the good old Program Manager (progman.exe, remember that?) which the client just loves (and I must say it fits her purpose very well, it is not just a crazy idea) to 64-bit Windows 7. That is, of course, not possible except if you run virtual Windows XP environment. 
> 
> This XP environment is just a tightly integrated Remote Desktop and a Virtual PC running WinXP. At least launch times for apps are slower with this.
> A major challenge is that the machine must log in to a NetWare server. Novell doesn't seem to bother for a 64-bit client, so only a "Novell Client 2" is available with very limited features. But  with this you can attach your network drives and that's what counts.
> However, attached drives in the 64-bit host OS are supposed to be "automatically" linked to the virtual machine. They are, but whenever, in the virtual machine, you open a drive attached to the NetWare server, the host OS breaks down - completely with Blue Screen of Death - I haven't seen this for years. To get around this you have to install the normal 32-bit Novell Client 4.xx in the virtual machine and let it attach the networked drives directly.
> 
> As I don't see any true reason to run 64-bit - it just happened to be installed on the machine, and I have yet to see a 64-bit desktop application with a difference - I strongly consider to rebuild it with 32-bit Win7 because a cd with this was included with the machine - perhaps just to check out the PCMover from the other thread.
> 
> By the way, did you donate a small amount to the excellent Shrew people? We rarely do such, I must admit, but we try to persuade clients to do so and sometimes we just add some amount to the invoice because clients prefer invoices rather than receipts for donations.
> 
> /gustav