News Microsoft Stops Giving PC Makers Windows 10 32-Bit

[Admin]

Microsoft is no longer supplying OEMs with the 32-bit version of Windows 10.

Microsoft Stops Giving PC Makers Windows 10 32-Bit : Read more

 

[jeremyj_83]

Microsoft should have just made Win 10 64bit right away.

 

[King_V]

Microsoft should have just made Win 10 64bit right away.

Agreed - I can't imagine what they wanted 32-bit Windows 10 for at all. What percentage of systems out there needed it?

 

[USAFRet]

Agreed - I can't imagine what they wanted 32-bit Windows 10 for at all. What percentage of systems out there needed it?

More than 0%.
Also, the previous Win 7/8 32bit systems doing an inplace Upgrade to Win 10.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Agreed - I can't imagine what they wanted 32-bit Windows 10 for at all. What percentage of systems out there needed it?

It's not "Systems" that require it. It's legacy 16-bit software that cannot run on 64-bit operating systems (or simulated 32-bit OSes).

In my opinion, if it weren't for these programs that could not easily be re-written for 64-bit OSes, Microsoft should have eliminated 32-bit versions of their OS with Windows 7 as there was no upgrade path from XP and a clean install was required.

-Wolf sends

 

[King_V]

It's not "Systems" that require it. It's legacy 16-bit software that cannot run on 64-bit operating systems (or simulated 32-bit OSes).

In my opinion, if it weren't for these programs that could not easily be re-written for 64-bit OSes, Microsoft should have eliminated 32-bit versions of their OS with Windows 7 as there was no upgrade path from XP and a clean install was required.

If only GOG had gotten into that sort of software, too....

 

[dimar]

Recently was upgrading a DVR system from Win7 to 10, and discovered that Geovision GV-1480 doesn't have Windows 64-bit drivers, but works great with Win10 32-bit. Also noticed that some older systems with 3-4GB of RAM+SSD work faster with Win10 32-bit than 64-bit. I think Microsoft should support 32-bit Windows for at least 10-15 more years to minimize electronics waste from computers that still work ok.

 

[Suiton20]

Much of these problems can be solved with sand boxing a 16 or 32 bit emulator if it can run better and not have gpu acceleration issues. It’s possible Microsoft may at some point make it a paid subscription for companies that are still running barely functional 16 bit software on their 32 bit windows 10 just like with windows 7.

 

[USAFRet]

Much of these problems can be solved with sand boxing a 16 or 32 bit emulator if it can run better and not have gpu acceleration issues.

And to a machine shop operator in East Cleveland, who is relying on a 16bit application to run one of their lathes...you're speaking Klingon, translated into Sanskrit, brought out into Southern Viennese old school Latin, and then translated into computer geek speak.

Only sort of joking.

Seriously, though...there are a lot of things out there that run on old code. That will NOT be updated.

 

[mikeebb]

32-bit Windows is all my tablet will run. Atom chip, 2GB RAM, not upgradeable in any way. Given the fact that it's only used for a couple of specific things, it'll be around for a long time. MS still updates it; as long as that continues, I'm happy.

The shop that needs it in order to run ancient control software is a real use case, if miniscule as a % of Windows installs, and 32-bit Windows addresses it. However, the machine operator probably has no idea what's going on behind the scenes; they just know how to start the program and expect it to work. Classic case for backward compatibility that, as USAFRet said, will never be updated.

There is in fact no reason why a NEW COMPUTER that's not filling one of those legacy needs should come with 32-bit Windows. Even 4GB RAM is plenty (with a SSD) to run 64-bit Win10; 8 is better of course, but if you're running a bunch of old 32-bit software (and a surprising amount of, even, new software is 32-bit 8GB is just gravy - the software can't use more than 4GB anyway.

Finally, it's easy to run 16-bit software in Win10 64-bit. DOSBox. Straight DOS stuff runs easily, right off the hard disk (no VHD required). I have Win3.1 and a couple of things written for it in DOSBox with a small batch file to start it all up. DOSBox is better, really, than 32-bit Windows for that, since it's possible to adjust which type of CPU, clock speed, various delays, etc. are used, and some older stuff needs that - runs so fast on modern hardware that it dies from divide-by-zero errors. The only place it might not work would be port access - controlling machines connected to some port decoded by wires soldered to a bus connector almost certainly won't work.

 

[Suiton20]

I wonder

32-bit Windows is all my tablet will run. Atom chip, 2GB RAM, not upgradeable in any way. Given the fact that it's only used for a couple of specific things, it'll be around for a long time. MS still updates it; as long as that continues, I'm happy.

The shop that needs it in order to run ancient control software is a real use case, if miniscule as a % of Windows installs, and 32-bit Windows addresses it. However, the machine operator probably has no idea what's going on behind the scenes; they just know how to start the program and expect it to work. Classic case for backward compatibility that, as USAFRet said, will never be updated.

There is in fact no reason why a NEW COMPUTER that's not filling one of those legacy needs should come with 32-bit Windows. Even 4GB RAM is plenty (with a SSD) to run 64-bit Win10; 8 is better of course, but if you're running a bunch of old 32-bit software (and a surprising amount of, even, new software is 32-bit 8GB is just gravy - the software can't use more than 4GB anyway.

Finally, it's easy to run 16-bit software in Win10 64-bit. DOSBox. Straight DOS stuff runs easily, right off the hard disk (no VHD required). I have Win3.1 and a couple of things written for it in DOSBox with a small batch file to start it all up. DOSBox is better, really, than 32-bit Windows for that, since it's possible to adjust which type of CPU, clock speed, various delays, etc. are used, and some older stuff needs that - runs so fast on modern hardware that it dies from divide-by-zero errors. The only place it might not work would be port access - controlling machines connected to some port decoded by wires soldered to a bus connector almost certainly won't work.

I always wondered why the 64 bit windows runs like complete crap on PCs with less than 4gb of ram. In theory it should run faster because every cpu made in the last 10 years has 64 bit instructions and should run way faster with needing a little bit more ram. I put a 64 bit windows 7 on my friends pc which had only 512mb of ram and a single core cpu. It ran horribly most of the time. They’re were times it ran faster than the 32 bit counterpart but that’s probably only when opening up “This PC” or the task manager. I assumed it the 32 bit and 64 bit shouldn’t matter and Windows should sort itself out. The iPhone 4s was the first 64 bit smartphone with 512mb ram running 32 bit iOS and ran faster after Apple released a 64 bit version proving ram doesn’t really matter.

 

[mikeebb]

I wonder

I always wondered why the 64 bit windows runs like complete crap on PCs with less than 4gb of ram. In theory it should run faster because every cpu made in the last 10 years has 64 bit instructions and should run way faster with needing a little bit more ram. I put a 64 bit windows 7 on my friends pc which had only 512mb of ram and a single core cpu. It ran horribly most of the time. They’re were times it ran faster than the 32 bit counterpart but that’s probably only when opening up “This PC” or the task manager. I assumed it the 32 bit and 64 bit shouldn’t matter and Windows should sort itself out. The iPhone 4s was the first 64 bit smartphone with 512mb ram running 32 bit iOS and ran faster after Apple released a 64 bit version proving ram doesn’t really matter.

32-bit is for small memory and a few old processors that don't support 64-bit. Niche product, but important for applications where 16-bit software with full access to the machine is required.

For Win7: 1GB (512MB for 32-bit): the specified minimum. Runs horribly slow due to need for virtual memory swapping to disk. I had one of these; 512MB worked acceptably but slow with 32-bit Win7. Was much happier after upgrading to 1GB, and later replacing the computer with one (still in use with Win10 after expansion to 8GB and installing a SSD) with a couple of GB so I could use 64-bit.

For Win10:
2GB (1GB for 32-bit): The specified minimum. Boots, but you can't do much with it. Even with a SSD it'll spend all of its time swapping.
4GB (2GB for 32-bit): the practical minimum; with a SSD, the swapping doesn't hold things up very much.
8GB (4GB): the recommended minimum (actually, the maximum RAM for 32-bit); swapping is only a minor issue even with spinning rust, and not an issue with a SSD.
16GB (no equivalent in 32-bit): the recommended minimum for serious users; plenty of room for 64-bit software and good-sized datasets with little or no swapping. SSD optional but always recommended as the boot drive.

Edit: clarifying and adding the Win7 minimum; MB not KB...