Hi xtraseller - Welcome to w7forums
I purchased an Acer laptop with Windows 7 64 bit (did not realise this), but some of our office software only works on 32 bit (there are no upgrade options available) - so the laptop is useless to me for its main purpose
Assuming you are the Admin because you said you purchased the Laptop. Have you tried running the software with UAC(User Account Control) disabled? There is also compatibility modes for older software. Windows 7 64-Bit will run software just as well as the 32-Bit version. You may find that you will have the same issues with the 32-Bit version.
Is there an easy way to change to installation from 64 bit to 32 bit - and if so, what do I need to have and do?
Changing bit versions will require a clean install. It is not possible to upgrade or downgrade from one bit version to the other.
However you can switch Bit versions, all you need to know is the Activation Key with a copy of Windows 7 Install media. This key on name brand PC's is usually labeled somewhere on the PC. If not there is software that will extract the key from the OS.
I can't say for sure if you have this configuration or not. I've only heard about it once, so I can't verify if its true or not. Some PC's have both version within the Recovery Partition and will ask which bit version you want while you are doing a System Recovery.
