64/32bit device support

Guest2 · 1 Jun 2010 at 16:29

I have never really thought about this until now. I am reinstalling a personal laptop for someone at work and on the download page that are certain drivers that are only 64bit compatible, such as the memory card reader, touchpad and wireless LAN driver.

My machine at home has 64bit Windows 7 pro and everything works fine except one device that doesnt support 64bit because of unsigned drivers. I run this on a virtual machine.

I take it that hardware is starting to be released that only supports 64bit Windows

If this is the case then in a couple of years will we start seeing computer that only support 64bit OS's? (title edited because it sounded stupid)

Redmint · 1 Jun 2010 at 16:36

Guest2 said:
If this is the case then in a couple of years will we start seeing computer that only support 64bit OS's? (title edited because it sounded stupid)

I would be suprised if this was the case, people (particularly developers) will still want 32 bit support to check for platform compatibility. Also hardware/computer manufacturers are fairly reluctant to force people to update their OS. Most stuff still works with XP doesn't it? Which was released in 2002 I believe.

Guest2 · 1 Jun 2010 at 16:40

Why would they need to check for platform compatibility if everyone was running a 64bit OS?

The latter part I agree on, businesses inparticular will not (IMO) move to 64bit OS for many years. I know some big companies still use systems from 30 odd years ago (not physical desktop machines)

Redmint · 1 Jun 2010 at 16:42

Not everyone will be running a 64 bit OS in a couple of years though, if everyone did change then yes obviously they wouldn't have to check.

Destination · 1 Jun 2010 at 19:33

Vail is going to be 64bit only isn't it?

I guess other server versions will follow suit, and probably windows 8 might be that option too.
Everything progresses and eventually old stuff is phased out, currently everything is in duo, as manufactuerers won't cut out possible sales, especially to business community which is happily plugging along on winXP, and will be for some time yet.