Windows - 64 bit only?

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Quartz-1

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Is it possible to strip out all the 32 bit support in Windows 10 and run it as 64 bit only? Is there any benefit to so doing? If it's not possible now, would there be any advantages of a 64 bit-only Windows?
 
Quartz-1 said:
Is it possible to strip out all the 32 bit support in Windows 10 and run it as 64 bit only? Is there any benefit to so doing? If it's not possible now, would there be any advantages of a 64 bit-only Windows?
Click to expand...
No, because we are not at the point where we can utterly rely on 64 bit. Some of the software ran on 64 bit Windows is 32 bit only. Looking at my 64 bit install, 3 of my applications (including graphics driver and a Microsoft program) have 32 bit components that are currently running.

Now, Microsoft did disable 16 bit support by default in Windows 8 32 bit. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually allow you to toggle off 32 bit in 64 bit but we are not there yet.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Is it possible to strip out all the 32 bit support in Windows 10 and run it as 64 bit only?

Is there any benefit to so doing?

If it's not possible now, would there be any advantages of a 64 bit-only Windows?
Click to expand...

not possible, not needed.

no benefits.

no single advantage.

adding, Huge pita for devs, as most of 64 bits even being native run in the x86 directory both in system and Registry, lot of 64 bit apps/programs/games run in 64 bit mode by just running several 32bit instances driven by a main proccess so we are really far of a 64 bit only OS environment.
 
64 bit programs can run faster and often do... but not always. It really depends on what the software is doing. In windows running 32bit code relies on the wow64 subsystem... but even counting that slow down, some programs simply don't need more then 4 gb of ram and are not doing hardcore computational math. 64 bit programs require more overhead, and for some types of code will induce more cache misses then simply running 32 bit code. (its not a major issue... and well optimized 64bit code using the larger registers ect is of course almost always faster... almost)

So although 64 bit is in general faster... for some software other then the ability to address a lot more RAM there aren't a ton of advantages. In a small handful of cases 32bit can in fact be faster.

So really I don't expect MS is really in a rush to completely kill the 32 bit subsystem... and from what I understand there really isn't much to remove anyway. The wow64 subsystem isn't exactly massive, and isn't really sucking much resource wise. Nothing would run any better/faster removing it.
 
Server 2008 R2 Core had the option to disable WOW64 support. I think it was the only Windows SKU that had this option (can't speak for Servers 2012/2016 editions and their derivatives). Then again, you're stuck with a cmd or powershell-only interface, so you're SOL if you want a 64bit-exclusive Windows system and run GUI apps.
 
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