Office 2007 on Windows 7 64 bit

[belltt]

Would I see a significant performance improvement in running complex spreadsheets if I upgrade from XP to Windows 7 64 bit? My understanding is that Office 2007 is 32 bit and won't take advantage of the 64 bit?

To further explain, on my work machine I currently have a decent Dell setup running Windows XP with 2 GB of RAM. I primarily work in Excel and Access 2007 and often find myself waiting on my machine.

My plan is to wait until Office 2010 is released and then do a machine upgrade that includes more RAM, Windows 7 64 bit and Office 2010.

I'm wondering if I upgrade my laptop, RAM and operating system now and add Office 2010 when it becomes available......would I see any significant performance improvement running the same Excel and Access 2007 on a machine with more RAM and an operating system that can utilize that RAM?

 

[ulysses35]

More RAM will certainly help, as will a new CPU.

I run Windows 7 / 64 and use office 2007 without any problems and although I have an i7 and 6gb of RAM there isnt a lot of difference between XP 32 and Windows 7 in the performance of Office.

 

[dallasjoh]

I am currently running Windows 64 bit with Office 2010 64bit Beta. I have noticed some increase in performance but I don't run complex spreadsheets. More ram would help for now then when Office 2010 comes out upgrade to Windows 7 64bit and Office 2010 64bit with at least 4GB of ram.

 

[buwish]

Like they said, you'll see a bit of a performance improvement if you switch over to W7. Depending on how complex the spread sheets are, 64 bit Office (2010) won't make a difference. I've found it to be "buggy" to be honest. All in all, I'd wait it out until the RTM of Office 2010 is released and then buy a new machine. 2007 still does a great job in my opinion.

 

[sminlal]

You didn't really say whether you're looking for improvement in the time it takes to OPEN the spreadsheet or the time it takes for the spreadsheet to UPDATE or run analysis functions. I'm going to assume the latter...

Spreadsheets aren't going to run any faster with a new OS or a 64-bit OS. Running the same version of Office means that the same instructions will be executed and so there really isn't going to be any difference.

If your spreadsheet is so large that you're constrained by the 2GB of memory and the overflow is going into the pagefile - in that case adding memory would help.

Going to 64-bit Office probably isn't going to help, either - what 64-bits gives you is the ability to handle LARGER spreadsheets. The only reason 64-bit would be faster is if they've tightened the code somehow.

If spreadsheet UPDATES or ANALYSIS is taking longer than you want, the only thing that's going to give you a significant improvement is a faster CPU.

 

[belltt]

It is the updating and analysis of the data. Thanks all for the good info.

 

[sminlal]

Do you have a multi-core machine? Multicore machines are pretty much becoming the de facto standard these days, and it's very possible that one of the improvements in Office 2010 is to make better use of them than 2007 did. If that's the case (and if you have a multi-core machine), an Office 2010 upgrade could actually make a significant difference.

 

[knotknut]

My plan is to wait until Office 2010 is released and then do a machine upgrade that includes more RAM, Windows 7 64 bit and Office 2010.

Answer is in your post!