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Windows operating systems have been evolving over the last four or five years and unless you’ve come up against some of the challenges of a 64-bit OS, you haven’t heard too much about it. Microsoft has had a version of Windows XP in 64-bit for some time, but because software developers and hardware manufacturers have been slow to develop the technology supported by 64-bit it had not really caught on.
Windows Vista began to take a larger share of the 64-bit market as developers began to write programs and drivers that specifically used the new architecture. One of the primary players that just made the jump to the new architecture has been Adobe.[1] Until recently the only way to view web pages that utilized Adobe Flash was to download a 32-bit browser that would run on the platform and use the flash add-in on that browser to view those pages. If you haven’t updated to Flash 10.1, you can install the free add-in by clicking here.
The standard has shifted with the release of Windows 7. Unless you specifically purchase a new system with a 32-bit OS, you are going to run the 64-bit version. Unless you have the specific need of running the 32-bit version of the software, it’s time to make the jump. The most common problem that Windows users have faced with the new architecture is the ability to find drivers that work with older hardware. So if you have an old HP laser printer, chances are that HP is not going to write a 64-bit driver. Some software claim they will run in compatibility mode, but since device drivers interface directly with hardware and don’t interact with the hardware, emulation is virtually impossible.
The biggest advantage of the new architecture is “the 64-bit systems offer direct access to more virtual and physical memory than 32-bit systems and process more data per clock cycle, enabling more scalable, higher performing computing solutions”. Does anybody remember the days where you upgraded the memory in your computer from 16mb to 32mb? The cap on readable memory in an XP Professional machine was 4gb. Windows 7 with the 64bit OS and the right hardware configuration has the following caps on its perspective version of the OS:
For more information on the design or a new system or an upgrade on your current system, contact your representative from Geeks of Nevada at 775-841-7118
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