Windows 7 – The Real Dawning of the 64-bit Era?
Firstly, we need to clear something up. 64-bit technology is not new, and has been around on specialist platforms for years. It has not really entered the mainstream, though, for two reasons:-
1) It hasn’t been Championed by Microsoft. Like it or not, Microsoft have serious influence in the IT Industry and by and large, when they throw their considerable weight at something, it moves!
2) It hasn’t been required. 64-bit technology is only really useful for specialist applications that require an ultra-high degree of computing accuracy. However, with the ever-growing requirement for more and more available memory, its secondary benefit is coming to the fore – giving the Operating System the ability to access more than 3.2GB of memory.
It was supposed to have happened with Windows XP; Microsoft offered a 64-bit version of the product that (allegedly) delivered great performance improvements and allowed ground-breaking technologies to be unleashed. Sadly, it didn’t happen, and the industry waited.
Windows Vista was Microsoft’s the next Operating System to be offered in a 64-bit form, and this option was generally taken up more than with XP, but not decisively so. Which leads us neatly into Windows 7 and the question arises again.
It is this author’s view that Windows 7 will see another incremental growth-step in the adoption of 64-bit, but because Windows 7 will be offered in 32-bit guise as well, there will be doubters who stick with the old school version. So in a nutshell, Windows 7 will advance the foothold of 64-bit, but will not be the harbinger of global adoption. Perhaps this will be the job of Windows 8?
We here at Nemark have started shipping Windows 7 64 Bit and have to say it is getting some good reactions.
Firstly, we need to clear something up. 64-bit technology is not new, and has been around on specialist platforms for years. It has not really entered the mainstream, though, for two reasons:-
1) It hasn’t been Championed by Microsoft. Like it or not, Microsoft have serious influence in the IT Industry and by and large, when they throw their considerable weight at something, it moves!
2) It hasn’t been required. 64-bit technology is only really useful for specialist applications that require an ultra-high degree of computing accuracy. However, with the ever-growing requirement for more and more available memory, its secondary benefit is coming to the fore – giving the Operating System the ability to access more than 3.2GB of memory.
It was supposed to have happened with Windows XP; Microsoft offered a 64-bit version of the product that (allegedly) delivered great performance improvements and allowed ground-breaking technologies to be unleashed. Sadly, it didn’t happen, and the industry waited.
Windows Vista was Microsoft’s the next Operating System to be offered in a 64-bit form, and this option was generally taken up more than with XP, but not decisively so. Which leads us neatly into Windows 7 and the question arises again.
It is this author’s view that Windows 7 will see another incremental growth-step in the adoption of 64-bit, but because Windows 7 will be offered in 32-bit guise as well, there will be doubters who stick with the old school version. So in a nutshell, Windows 7 will advance the foothold of 64-bit, but will not be the harbinger of global adoption. Perhaps this will be the job of Windows 8?
We here at Nemark have started shipping Windows 7 64 Bit and have to say it is getting some good reactions.
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