Why no 64-bit switchover

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Bleedblue12345

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2004
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Why are people aka. most brick and motar and mainstream coputer builders sticking 32-bit os'es in the computer. 32-bit is a thing of the past, almost all new computers can use 64-bit os'es (x2 line, core 2 line, even the aging amd 64 line)

SO why doesn't everyone switchover, the os doesn't cost anymore, if we all switched over, driver support would have to get better, apps would actually start to use the 64-bit bus? Why stick with the old???

Especially now that some systems are hitting the maximum supported RAM

Comments please...
 
I feel you. 64 bit could be very useful if more people switched.

I mean, a switch could be easy, especially with Vista and all. Tons of prebuilt machines from, say, Emachines or HP, come with AMD Athlon 64 processors. So why couldn't they just pre-install a 64-bit version of the OS on most of the machines? Maybe the next big OS release will have something like this.
 
Understand that as late as december last year you were still seeing a bunch of systems sold that didn't support 64bit code. Hell some still don't(via ones).

A switch like this takes years. You need the hardware to fully support it for a good 2 or 3 years before you will see it catch on.
 
Not all of my software, games, and hardware are supported in 64-bit. Until that happens, 64-bit is not a feasible option for me.
 
Windows 3.0 was released in 1990, giving support to real mode, standard mode, and 386 enhanced mode.

Windows 3.1 was released in 1992, which excluded support for real mode and anything less than a 286 processor.

Windows 95 was released in Aug. 1995 and excluded support for anything less than a 386dx processor.

These things take time, you see.

It is unlikely to see Microsoft and OEMs drop 32-bit support for at least another 2-3 years or so, given the market penetration of 32-bit systems that are still capable of running Windows Vista. OEMs will stick with 32-bit because it is stable, tried and true, and there are little or no applications that truly require 64bit at this point.

However, it will eventually happen. We're already pushing the 4gb boundary. When Dell starts shipping budget PC's with 2gb of RAM standard, you'll see them coming with a 64-bit OS.
 
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