32bit OS on a 64bit laptop: OK?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

The good progenitors, in their archaic but noble ways, decided to buy a laptop to replace the Win95 machine they’ve been using. For reasons beyond my understanding, they purchased an old laptop, a Presario V6000. Now, this thing is about a year old today, but it has an AMD Turion64x2 processor. It reads as a dual core 64bit processor.

However, the version of Windows on this thing is XP 32bit Professional. I haven’t had to deal with 64bit processors so far, but I’m wondering whether I should install XP or Vista 64 on this thing. If all that’s going to do is give it a performance boost, it might be unnecessary.

Is there any reason why plain WinWord-using civilians should use a 64bit OS?

2

No.

You’d be risking a variety of problems, for no discernible benefit.

3

If you are going to buy a new OS, Id go with the 64 bit vista over 32 bit. If you are just wondering if you should change OS or not, then stick with what you have.

Fundamentally 64 bit OSs running 64 bit apps will run much better then 32 bit OSs running 32bit apps on 64 bit hardware. However, until 64 bit apps become common, I would not worry about that.

4

Thanks for the advice folks.

I’ll keep it with the 32bit OS. Shame, really. This thing is basically going to become a printserver.

5

Then most definitely keep it 32-bit. I’m running 64-bit Vista and the one thing I lack is 64-bit printer drivers for my laser printer. Everyone but the printer companies are doing a decent job about providing 64-bit drivers. I have to print through my MacBook Pro.

6

Compaq nc8430 64-bit Centrino Duo here, provided so nicely by my employers. First thing I did was scrub Vista x64 off of it, and install XP x32 Pro. No hassles, other than I can’t use all of the 4 GB of RAM in the thing.