Will 64-bit finally go prime time with Windows 7?

Dong Ngo over at CNET Crave is calling out for individuals and organizations to upgrade to the 64-bit edition of Windows when Windows 7 comes along. He highlighted a number of reasons to go 64-bit, one of which is the ability to completely access every part of RAM above 3GB. In addition, he also noted that backward compatibilities do exist even when running Windows 32-bit applications on the 64-bit edition of Windows 7.

Personally, I installed the 64-bit version of Windows 7 for a few weeks when I tested it for the first time. While I have no doubt that 64-bit is the way to go, I suspect that it will not be driven by end-users as opposed to computer makers pre-installing Windows 7 64-bit.

Hopefully, with more machines being sold with 4GB or more of RAM nowadays, this will be what happens when Windows 7 is generally available come October 22.

Let's not be mistaken, there will be some amount of transitional pain involved here--as users find that legacy devices with only 16-bit software can no longer be used. However, this should hopefully affect only a minority of users. On the other hand, as corporations start getting in-house applications to work on 64-bit platforms, it will be a short matter of time before 64-bit becomes the new standard.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET Crave

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