Difference between 32-bit and 64-bit

 How's it going guys , today's topic is gonna be 32-bit vs. 64-bit whether it's Windows or programs you're running on Windows or even any other operating system What are the differences between these should you use one of the other are there advantages and disadvantages to both?

 So let's get over that now the first thing to understand is that when it comes to talking about a CPU the 32-bit vs. 64 bit distinction has to do with the Register of the CPU which is basically how much data it can queue up to process at once 64-bit can process a lot more information and take a lot more information from the RAM to do stuff with than a 32-bit CPU or operating system can do but one important thing to also know is that every single bit is not directly proportional so it's not like 64-bit can handle twice as much information or twice as much RAM.

 In fact, It's exponential so a 32 gigabyte operating system can only handle four gigabytes of RAM maximum and that also means that each individual program in Windows typically was limited to only two gigabytes of RAM for each program whereas if it's 64-bit the theoretical maximum for how much RAM you could use is literally over sixteen point seven million terabytes and also that two gigabyte limit is gone with 64-bit and Windows allows you to assign literally terabytes to any individual program So there's really no limit to the amount of RAM you're gonna ever use.

 Even in the foreseeable future so that is one main advantage that most people can recognize and appreciate Because even if you don't know much about computers You probably know what Ram is and that more is better, and if there's a four gigabyte limit I mean, that's how much we have in our smart phones these days That's nothing so you want a lot more than that but in addition to that because the register is wider It means it can not only use more RAM total But it's also gonna be able to use that RAM more Efficiently so even if you did still only have four gigabytes of RAM Then it would still be able to use that Ram a lot better so it's going to be faster in two aspects so that has to do with the physical arc texture of the CPU you can have 64-bit processors which are pretty much all in these days versus the old 32-bit but just because a CPU is 64-bit you can also install a 32-bit operating system on that it's not Exclusive, I don't you wouldn't really want to do that But you can if you have to and you can also obviously install a 64-bit operating system
 Which is probably what you're using if you've installed Windows in the past few years and one advantage in 64-bit versions of Windows at least over 32-bit is it does have a lot more security features So I don't know if this was impossible to do on 32-bit or if they just decided to enforce it with 64-bit because Driver manufacturers would have to be rewriting drivers for 64-bit anyway So they may as well force them to do this stuff along the way But regardless there are improvements with 64-bit so this includes for example drivers signature enforcement so if a Manufacturer wants to write a driver for their device to work with any computer then they have to sign that driver Which wasn't necessarily required before so Windows basically says all right since you're gonna have to be writing 64-bit processors They all have to be signed. We're not gonna let any Drivers there were 64-bit onto this computer unless it is signed so that means that it's a lot harder for malware to Get on to the computer because if it's not correctly signed by a legit manufacturer then somehow that malware Would have to bypass that and windows recognize wait a minute this isn't from a real manufacturer and probably block it also a 64-bit version of Windows has what is called patch guard which basically prevents programs and drivers from Patching or modifying the kernel which is basically the core of the operating system You don't really want programs to be able to do that so that's one major advantage of windows 64-bit and then finally another advantage is hardware data execution prevention Which is a fancy way of saying that the operating system can block malicious programs from? Modifying Ram data that it's not supposed to be able to do and stop things from executing That is not meant to be and kind of as I said before pretty much all installations of Windows these days are gonna still be 64-bit they do give you the option to choose 32-bit But you wouldn't really want to do that for reasons what we can get to in a bit but if you do want to check that just to be sure you can check in the system properties of Windows and look it should say either 32-bit or 64-bit Now even though I did say that there's pretty much unlimited amount of RAM that you can have with the 64-bit processor Windows does implement limitations that are software limitations And it does depend on which version of Windows you have so this might be interesting to some of you so when it comes to Windows 7 you might not have known this But if you have the home version of Windows 7 you can only have up to 16 gigabytes of RAM There's a limit on that and if you have the pro version though You can have up to 192 gigabytes, and this is just a software limitation. It's not a physical limitation That's impossible though when it comes to Windows 10 There's not really any realistic limit that anyone should worry about Windows 10 home for example has 128 gigabyte limit, so I don't know anyone who has 128 gigabytes I don't even know if you could fit that in if you wanted unless it was a server although if you do have the pro version of Windows 10 or enterprise or education then you can have 2 terabytes plus so Most people I don't think are gonna have to worry about Ram limitations on Windows 10 you can just stick as much as you want in there now if you do happen to be installing Windows any time soon And you have the choice between 32-bit and 64-bit You definitely want to go for 64-bit there used to be issues with Manufacturers not having drivers and sometimes a lot of programs wouldn't work yet to wait for it But now that pretty much everyone has that all manufacturers are making 64-bit drivers so you don't have to worry about that you're not gonna have any issues though one thing you should keep in mind is when you upgrade windows not necessarily a clean install typically windows will keep the same version through that upgrade so if you have a 32-bit version of Windows and you do an upgrade it's going to give you a 32-bit version of the next edition of Windows so if you've been upgrading Windows Since Windows XP or something where you have 32-bit you might want to check you might still have windows 32-bit Cuz you never did a clean install and if that is the case Then you will have to do a clean install Which it's kind of a pain in the neck you have to do a reformat typically so that's annoying But you will get some benefit if you have more than four gigabytes of RAM if you don't then it's not really necessary But you still might want to you might be wondering well are there any disadvantages To running 64-bit windows or programs and the answer is kind of I guess But it's only in the sense of compatibility because if you're running 64-bit Windows then you might be Using a really old device that doesn't have 64-bit drivers and in that case it if you need that device it's absolutely necessary for your livelihood or something then it wouldn't make sense to upgrade obviously because you wouldn't be able to use it and another disadvantage is if you have 64-bit then you might not be able to run 16-bit programs on Windows 64-bit it can run 32-bit programs fine, but not that far back But I don't even know any examples of 16-bit programs that anyone would need if you're using like ancient Software again, that could be a reason to stick to 32-bit But I don't think that's going to be for many people so we talked about a 64-bit processor 64-bit operating system and of course you probably know that there are 32-bit and 64-bit programs that run on these operating systems and some of you might be thinking now wait a minute if 64-bit is so great then why are there so many 32-bit programs still around and that is the case like if you didn't notice when you go into Windows on a 64-bit version Then there will be two folders for Program Files. There's going to be Program Files this nothing on the extension That's 64-bit programs, and then there's another one that will be called Program Files x86 Which is where all the 32-bit programs go and obviously this does mean that you can run a 32-bit program on windows 64-bit No problem Microsoft was sure to make sure that there would be no issues because pretty much all programs were written in 32 And it would not be very good if everyone's program Just didn't work anymore so realistically running a 32-bit program versus a 64-bit program you're probably not going to notice any difference the difference would be that a 32-bit program can only use up to four gigabytes of RAM whereas the 64-bit could use as much as you need so the reason there are still so many 32-bit programs is a lot of developers They might say look my program is very small it definitely doesn't need four gigabytes of RAM So I may as well just write it in 32-bit, and then it'll work on everyone's computers 32-bit or 64-bit Rather than writing two separate programs that no one's gonna know the difference. They have to compile it separately there might be changes They have to make in the code, and it's like it's not worth the hassle There's not going to be any difference so they just write it in 32-bit and are done with it However in general if you do have the choice it Probably is better to install the 64 bit version of the program and might run a little bit more efficient Especially if it does need more than 4 gigabytes of RAM Then you definitely want to run it obviously if you can take advantage of it and also you do get a little bit more of those security features that we talked about before so it'll integrate better with that patch protection and It'll just run better in general if you do have the choice you may as well run the 64 bit program But a lot of times it might not be obvious where to download this they might just have you download the page by default to 32-bit and they kind of make you search for the 64 bit version but I mean if you really look for it usually most programs these days do have about 64 bit programs, so yeah I guess there's not much more to say about it .
The conclusion is what I just said if you have the choice go with 64-bit Unless you have something SuperDuper old that won't work .
 Thanks so much for reading our article. I'll see you next time.