Widows 7 64 bit

I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
have Windows 7 64 bit?

On 01/05/2012 9:37 AM, Dennis wrote:
> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
> have Windows 7 64 bit?

Search on "Windows 7 anytime upgrade"

Wolf K.

On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Wolf K wrote:
> On 01/05/2012 9:37 AM, Dennis wrote:
>> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
>> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
>> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
>> have Windows 7 64 bit?
>
> Search on "Windows 7 anytime upgrade"
>
> Wolf K.

i forgot to include that it is a Windows 7 Professional OEM disk.
The disk says "Includes Windows Anytime Upgrade".

On Tue, 01 May 2012 09:37:48 -0400, Dennis <> wrote:

> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
> have Windows 7 64 bit?



See other replies, but bear in mind that, regardless of whether or not
it's called an "upgrade," you can not change from one "bitness" of
Windows to another (32-bit to 64-bit, or vice versa) by doing an
upgrade. The only way to get to 64-bit is by doing a clean
installation.

Also bear in mind that to run 64-bit Windows, you have to have a
64-bit motherboard and CPU. If your computer is reasonably new, it's
probably 64-bit, but you should make sure before you do anything.

Dennis wrote:
> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
> have Windows 7 64 bit?

Make an 8GB RAMDisk for yourself ? :-)

This is free, up to a 4GB RAMdisk size. You can experiment with it first
and see if it's worth paying more to have the capacity limit removed.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-a...ftware/ramdisk

You can run HDTune and benchmark it. My machine has slow RAM, and you
should be able to do better than this.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8...am2gbabove.gif

Paul

On 01/05/2012 9:37 AM, Dennis wrote:
> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
> have Windows 7 64 bit?

You can use the same activation key between the 32- and 64-bit versions
of the same edition of Windows 7. So if you have Windows 7 Professional
32-bit, then you can use Professional 64-bit too.

However, there is no way of saving your setup between 32-bit and 64-bit.
If you want the 64-bit, then it will be like a fresh install. You'd have
to backup your data on that drive to something else. And you'll have to
reinstall all of your applications.

Yousuf Khan

Hi, Dennis.

There's hardware - and there's software.

By that, I mean that all (I think) computers sold today have 64-bit innards
and will support many more GB of RAM than you or I might need in the next
several years! (16 GB in Home Premium, 192 GB in Professional and higher,
per Windows Inside Out)

But many 64-bit computers are sold with 32-bit Windows installed. With a
32-bit operating system, we can access only 4 GB of that RAM, no matter how
much is physically installed. And some amount of that 4 GB is reserved for
system use, so only about 3.5 GB (varies with your configuration) of your 12
GB is actually available to you.

So your solution, as you've learned, is to switch to 64-bit Win7. How you
make the switch is up to you, but an "upgrade" from 32-bit to 64-bit is NOT
one of the options. As the others have said, you'll need to boot the
hardware into 64-bit mode (usually by booting from the 64-bit DVD); you
can't boot into 32-bit Windows and run 64-bit Setup from there. WET
(Windows Easy Transfer - included on your disk) will make the job easier.

If your computer came with ONLY 32-bit Windows pre-installed, then you'll
need to get the 64-bit DVD. But if you bought the retail Win7 Ultimate (for
example), you should find TWO DVDs in the package, with a single Product Key
that will install either of them - as often as you might need to re-install.

You might want to check out this page:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...sked-questions

Once you get 64-bit Win7 installed, you can go buy - and use - a lot more
RAM. ;^}

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3555.0308) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1


"Dennis" wrote in message
news:...

I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
have Windows 7 64 bit?

On 01/05/2012 14:37, Dennis wrote:
> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
> have Windows 7 64 bit?

Before you do, check that anything you currently use which has a 32-bit
driver has a 64-bit driver available.

--

Jeff

On 5/1/2012 12:08 PM, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 01/05/2012 14:37, Dennis wrote:
>> I bought 12 GB of memory when I bought my computer and then found out
>> it doesn't use that much because it is the 32 bit version and not 64
>> bit. Is there an upgrade or do I have to buy a complete new OS to
>> have Windows 7 64 bit?
>
> Before you do, check that anything you currently use which has a 32-bit
> driver has a 64-bit driver available.
>
Depending on how much trouble you want to go to, and so forth, there is
a way to remove the 4G limit. It's NOT MS approved. I'm still
a bit miffed about MS's failure to disclose things properly in the
beginning.
http://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/w...nse/memory.htm
Is a place to start the process, if you are still interested after
finding out all the whereas-es.

On 02/05/2012 2:01 AM, R. C. White wrote:
> There's hardware - and there's software.
Sure is. and then there's hardware and there's hardware. I have a
new-ish laptop from Toshiba with Win 7 64 bit running happily. I wanted
to add more memory but the MAX the hardware can take is 8 GB. So I've
maxed it out. Also changed the spindle drive with an SSD and it really
flies heaps and heaps faster.