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This 32-bit and 64-bit thing baffles me. It's not often that I run across it, but when I do, it baffles me. Like when I want to download software from http://www.google.com/ime/transliteration/ it asks me which version to download.

I have win XP running on my thinkpad machine. How do I find out if my hardware is 32-bit or 64-bit. Also, how do I find if OS is 32-bit or 64-bit and thus how to know which version to download from this link. Also for any installed application say firefox, how do I know which bit version is installed.

How popular are 64-bit hardware/OSs?. Are all the new CPUs and OSs supporting 64-bit and 32-bit for backwards compatible or 64-bit is still a luxury?


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closed as off topic by nos, Quentin, David Heffernan, ChrisF, Brad Larson Feb 14 '11 at 16:06


1 Answer 1

You can view the Windows version from System preferences (I don't have a Windows-machine right now, but I think it can be found by right-clicking My computer and selecting Properties or via Control Panel). For Firefox and other applications, the version and architecture information is usually available in Help -> About.

Based on my own observations, 64bit OS's are becoming more common place, but 32bit systems are still also widespread. Most CPUs nowadays have 64bit architecture, but work with 32bit OSes also. Even if you have 64bit hardware, you can't run 64bit software unless the OS is also 64bit.

when it comes to performance, I think there's not that big a difference between 32bit and 64bit, maybe 64bit can be somewhat faster when doing calculations with "native" 64bit values.

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64 bit versions of OS are better at multi-threading in my experience and can use more memory. This can be a benefit even if you only run 32 bit apps. –  David Heffernan Feb 13 '11 at 15:08
