More speculation: Is 32-bit Windows dead?

barman58 · Jul 21, 2021

A lot of companies will have a "less is best" hardware/ software policy hardware and software costs are an important metric for any modern IT System Administrator, so the cheapest hardware / software that will do the job is the first choice it's also quite often standard practice to "downgrade" from a working later OS to the company standard to keep maintenance costs down, (it's a lot more cost efficient to only have to train staff to maintain one OS)

spapakons · Jul 21, 2021

As far as I know, 64-bit Windows from Windows XP x64 up to Windows 11, accept only 64-bit drivers. So any old system with only 32-bit drivers (XP and Vista era) cannot run 64-bit Windows, even if the CPU is 64-bit and meets the minimum requirements. I would not trust Windows Update to install all drivers. Even if they work OK, they probably provide only basic functionality and miss a lot of features the OEM driver would support. So running 64-bit Windows in such systems would in best case compromise performance.

sbal · Jul 21, 2021

barman58 said:
A lot of companies will have a "less is best" hardware/ software policy hardware and software costs are an important metric for any modern IT System Administrator, so the cheapest hardware / software that will do the job is the first choice it's also quite often standard practice to "downgrade" from a working later OS to the company standard to keep maintenance costs down, (it's a lot more cost efficient to only have to train staff to maintain one OS)

This might have been true in the 90's/2000's. Not really anymore. Corporations are going to moving to the cloud for everything in the next few years. It's no accident MS is pushing for it's online desktop solution so hard (as it should be)

There is simply no reason for an average corporate employee to run anything local on bare metal anymore. Hand them a thin client running Linux, plug in a monitor keyboard an mouse, and connect them to the virtual desktop environment. Zero support cost, zero upgrade costs, zero local system management costs, zero local security costs, etc.

At my company we don't even give employees hardware, period. As part of the employment agreement you agree to bring your own computer, and you access our corporate virtual desktop environment over a browser. If they don't have a computer we will sell them one. We save literally millions of dollars in IT costs every year since making the switch, AND the employees love it cause they can work remotely. And then we save even more money in non renewal of leases for office space no one needs anymore. We just ended the lease on a corporate office park we were paying 2 million a year in
rent for buildings that no one wanted to go into anyway.

32 bit/64 bit/ 128 bit won't matter since the entire OS will be in the cloud and can virtualize anything needed to run legacy software.

spapakons · Jul 21, 2021

What if there is an internet failure or a hacker attack? I find cloud too risky...

barman58 · Jul 21, 2021

Yes that is true Time passes and the wheel turns, I started in the 80's supporting dumb terminals, and dumber users most of the time and then being replaced with IBM PCs some of them running as terminals part time, to retain continuity.
I'm almost certain that the wheel will continue to turn, the current pandemic has moved a lot of the workforce to their own homes so that will continue to rise as it keeps costs even lower.

More and more products are ephemeral so is shipped electronically on devices made in what was, not to long ago the third world

Bree · Jul 21, 2021

sbal said:
This might have been true in the 90's/2000's. Not really anymore.....

Some investigations before wiping my machine with its x86 W7 corporate image showed that its image was applied at the end of July 2018, just 3 years ago. It would seem that some corporate IT departments are still set in 'the old ways' of doing things :wink:

sbal · Jul 21, 2021

spapakons said:
What if there is an internet failure or a hacker attack? I find cloud too risky...

Network conditions are impossible to resolve 100%. It's a risk of computing. What if the corporate network goes down?

Security is on the cloud side of the fence, so nothing the user falls for will matter. And 99.9% of computer security risks originate between the chair and the keyboard. If a user isn't practicing safe computing, no setup can prevent them from exposing the company to risk. Thats a training problem, not a technical one.

Some investigations before wiping my machine with its x86 W7 corporate image showed that its image was applied at the end of July 2018, just 3 years ago. It would seem that some corporate IT departments are still set in 'the old ways' of doing things

Agreed, because they know their entire career is on life support. They are going to do anything they can to keep themselves needed. Bu the almighty dollar eventually always wins. And not for nothing but in my 20+ years of corporate America I've never met an IT support person who knew enough to actually be useful.

hsehestedt · Jul 21, 2021

spapakons said:
As far as I know, 64-bit Windows from Windows XP x64 up to Windows 11, accept only 64-bit drivers. So any old system with only 32-bit drivers (XP and Vista era) cannot run 64-bit Windows, even if the CPU is 64-bit and meets the minimum requirements. I would not trust Windows Update to install all drivers. Even if they work OK, they probably provide only basic functionality and miss a lot of features the OEM driver would support. So running 64-bit Windows in such systems would in best case compromise performance.

Yeah, if a system doesn't have 64-bit drivers available, then it's REALLY old anyway. 32-bit has other limitations such as a maximum of 4GB memory support. I'm actually amazed that Microsoft supported 32-bit as long as they did. Others, such as Apple, set that ship ablaze long ago (2015 I believe).

spapakons · Jul 21, 2021

4GB RAM limit is not a problem, if these systems cannot take more RAM anyway. Also there are hacks to bypass this limitation and allow up to 64GB (Home) or 128GB (Pro). 32-bit allow the installation of Windows XP drivers for very old peripherals without any Vista or newer drivers. That includes some old printers, scanners, old PCI sound cards or TV tuner cards etc. I always keep at least one laptop running Windows 10 32-bit to address these compatibility issues.

BlueGuy · Jul 22, 2021

spapakons said:
4GB RAM limit is not a problem, if these systems cannot take more RAM anyway. Also there are hacks to bypass this limitation and allow up to 64GB (Home) or 128GB (Pro). 32-bit allow the installation of Windows XP drivers for very old peripherals without any Vista or newer drivers. That includes some old printers, scanners, old PCI sound cards or TV tuner cards etc. I always keep at least one laptop running Windows 10 32-bit to address these compatibility issues.

TV tuner cards-ya got that! That's why I always keep at least one 2000/XP machine around here, the 2006 era MDP-130 has no drivers later than XP for my main TV/PVR and Cliff Watson's EPG utility still runs on XP.

spapakons · Jul 22, 2021

BlueGuy said:
TV tuner cards-ya got that! That's why I always keep at least one 2000/XP machine around here, the 2006 era MDP-130 has no drivers later than XP for my main TV/PVR and Cliff Watson's EPG utility still runs on XP.

Most old TV tuner cards also work on Windows Vista 32-bit and Windows 7 32-bit using the Windows XP drivers and running their software (such as Pinnacle PCTV Vision) in Windows XP compatibility mode with Administrator rights. In Windows 8 and 10 32-bit the XP driver does work but the software usually displays a black window because of the change in implementation of DirectX code between "legacy" DirectX 9 (Windows XP to 7) and "modern" DirectX 9E found in DirectX 10 and above (Windows 8 and newer). The only workaround is to use newer third-party software to watch the channels and capture video. For watching I use Media Player Classic (Open Device). For capturing I use VirtualDub, Nero Video and OBS.