Any pitfalls with Windows 7 & 64 bit computers ?

[LeoLion]

Hi , Wondered where to post this so settled for here (Mods please move if you know a better place).

I am considering a new PC sourced locally - Dual Celeron 2.5 Ghz , 2Gb memory , 0.5 Tb HDD ,DVDRW dual layer with 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium (it has W Lan and we have a combo system and this silver surfer likes his cables!) . I have carefully dodged Vista (as I did the xxxx twixt 98 and XP) .

I don't game , do image process post capture with Gimp and PS Elements plus techy info surfing and email and astrovideo .

Now ladies and gents - are there any 'gotchas , trip wires etc' that I should be wary of with 64 bit ? Thanks for any advice

Len E

[NickH]

Yup...drivers... only real pitfall but if companies don't do them right. or indeed do them...well, good luck!

Also, some apps seem to have the odd little issue on a 64-bit system, we have one in Spain, and found a few little gotchas, but nothing too major

[arad85]

Depends on how much old software you're planning on running.... Most astro dedicated stuff tends to be XP and people have varying levels of success with it. The key is the older it is and the closer to hardware the software is, the more likely you will have a problem.

I've just jumped ship from XP to Win 7 on my desktop and really like it (apart from the dreadful UAC which I've switched off completely - it just interfered with too many things ). In fact, I just downgraded my newly built XP64 server to straight XP as I wanted to put some hardware in it that isn't supported in XP64...

List out the astro software you want to use and I'm sure there'll be enough advice around.

[rwg]

You're not likely to encounter too many problems with software packages - anything that works with Vista should work with Windows 7 (64 bit or not). You might encounter driver issues with old or niche hardware devices - 64 bit windows requires that hardware drivers be signed, and some smaller hardware vendors never bothered with this.

Probably worth thinking about more than 2gb of memory for a 64 version of the OS - it does use more memory than the 32 bit version and there is no advantage in the 64 bit version until your physical memory reaches 4gb. I think that 2gb is the minimum recommended for the 64 bit version.

Robin

[russ]

I've not had a single glitch or hiccup with Win7 64bit. Although i have only limted Astro software running (Stellarium 10.04, Registax 5). Photoshop CS3 also runs without glitch.

Your specs will certainly be fine with W7. I had an early RC copy of W7 64bit running with a lowly Intel E1200 dual core Pentium, 2Gb ram, low end ATI card (HD4670) and all ran very smooth indeed. This was our media centre PC playing Bluray, bit of video converting for a PSP and the odd bit of gaming. Absolutely no probs.

[Psychobilly]

I found registrax5 crawled on the last BETA of Windows 7 64 can anyone comment on how its running on the released version...

It "ran" as in it worked but at a fraction of the speed that it ran under Vista on the same machine...

[NickH]

Ah yes...AVIstack didn't work that was the one...the IDL threw an error...switched to the 32-bit machine on site, no problems

[Earl]

Unless you have 64bit applications there is very little gained in practical terms from a 64 bit os.

Driver support can often also be an issue.

From what i read some time back MS wont be full 64 bit for 2 or 3 os' releases.

As for Windows 7, I love it.

[steve_bham]

Ive just brought a new laptop with windows 7 64bit and *touch wood* everything works with no problems. Photo editing software, astro software etc.

[Mr Spock]

My nastiest shock was finding my Nikon CaptureNX software wasn't compatible with W7 even though it worked on the RC.

The next time I install Windows I will be going dual boot just for that. £190.00 to replace is not funny, grrr!

[yesyes]

I'm running Win 7 x64 on not too new hardware (3 year old desktop). I found 64 bit drivers for everything. Most of the time Vista x64 drivers will work if a specific Win 7 64bit driver is not available.

I'm running Registax 5 (yes, full speed), Deep Sky Stacker and Stellarium without any problems.

I'm well pleased that I chose to use 64bit and that all works fine. I've tried XP x64 a few years ago and couldn't find any drivers for anything. It seems 64bit has grown up a bit. Even though - as has been said before - most applications still run in 32 bit mode and don't run faster on 64bit OS. But the OS itself runs in 64 bit mostly and that probably helps a bit.

Hopefully the next OS after Win 7 will only be available in 64bit. Then applications will follow.

(typing this on a 64bit build of Firefox .. )

[LeoLion]

Thanks for the response . I use CdC and also C2A for star chart/atlas on the PC . I may go with memory doubling to 4Gb at the outset. Now to compare my local supplier with a similar spec PC from other sources that I am 'happy' with.

Len E

[russ]

4Gb from the outset is a very good idea. It's one area you will definitely benefit from having the 64bit version, being able to fully utilise that extra memory.

[yesyes]

32bit systems can address up to 4GB of RAM (of which Windows can use about 3.5GB). The real benefit of a 64bit system in terms of memory start when you go above 4GB (if you need that much).

But RAM is cheap these days, I'd go for 4GB when buying a new system.

Personally I'm running my Win7 x64 on 2GB and have no issues.

[NickH]

Ram drives for image capture :-)

And Photoshop with big images... v nice!