How to change 64 bit windows 7 to 32 bit?

[marc777]

Installed windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. Have a software which is only compatible with 32 bit. Can I adjust the windows 7 work with the 32 bit software?

 

[Ogdin]

Reinstall windows is your only option for switching back to 32 bit.

 

[welshmousepk]

what software are you having trouble with? there may be a 64bit version available.

as ogdin said though, you will need to buy a new liscence (if you have an OEM liscence) and re-install windows 32bit.

 

[marc777]

Is there any legacy feature in the windows 7 ultimate? This software has five parts, one part of it is not compatible with 64 bit version, the other 4 parts work fine.

 

[cjl]

32 bit software should be perfectly compatible with windows 7 64 bit. What is the software?

 

[Ogdin]

what software are you having trouble with? there may be a 64bit version available.

as ogdin said though, you will need to buy a new liscence (if you have an OEM liscence) and re-install windows 32bit.

I had originally started with vista 32 and just reinstalled 64 bit with the same oem key with no problems.

 

[Guest]

32 bit software should work, some older 32bit software may require turning off UAC and running as admin using compatibility settings, but not found any 32bit programs I cannot get to run on Win7 64bit.

If the program relies on 16bit emulation you are out of luck then as no 16bit emulation in 64bit windows, they decided to leave that legacy of Win 98 out and rightfully so!

 

[4745454b]

I'd be looking for different software.

One option might be to upgrade to the version of 7 that comes with a copy of XP. It won't have video acceleration, but you'll be able to run many programs. That or grab something like VMware and run your copy of XP virtually. Virtualbox is a program that might work for you, and its free.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

 

[r_manic]

Yes, doesn't 7 Professional and up have XP mode? In any case OP, we need more specifics!

 

[4745454b]

Actually, the OP says he has Ultimate so it should have XP mode. I would use it or VM.

 

[Junior73]

Installed windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. Have a software which is only compatible with 32 bit. Can I adjust the windows 7 work with the 32 bit software?

Windows 7 64 bit has whats called wow64 that allows you to run 32 bit aplications on the 64 bit system, it will be a bit slower as it dosnt utalize the 64 bit address. If you have an old 16/32 bit app, you can use virtual pc/virtual xp to run it, MS has alot of info on it.

 

[Junior73]

I'd be looking for different software.

One option might be to upgrade to the version of 7 that comes with a copy of XP. It won't have video acceleration, but you'll be able to run many programs. That or grab something like VMware and run your copy of XP virtually. Virtualbox is a program that might work for you, and its free.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Dose Virtual box actually work on Windows virtual 7? I guess all the info that I have read on the MS boads say that Virtual box was more for VM 2007, and that VM 7 had virtual xp to deal with most of the issues related to legacy systems.

 

[4745454b]

I didn't even think to check if it supports win7. I didn't see anything in there about it doing so. In the docs section, it does say under Host OS,

Windows Vista hosts might show an error about a COM server not being accessible. This is a problem of our installation routine which we have not figured out yet. To fix the problem, open a command prompt shell and enter...

This tells me it will run on vista, but with problems. 7 isn't that much different, not sure how well it will work though. Seeing as he has ultimate edition he doesn't need to use this.

 

[JessicaD]

You also cannot upgrade a 32-bit operating system to 64-bit -- to migrate from 32-bit to 64-bit will require a custom install.

To learn more about the differences to 32-bit vs. 64-bit architecture and which version within Windows 7 would best meet your needs, please go here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/64-bit-support.aspx?tabid=2&catid=1

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team

 

[Guest]

32 bit software should be perfectly compatible with windows 7 64 bit. What is the software?

it is Matlab version 2009

 

[dr9bob]

I installed Win7 - 32 Enterprise Edition bit on an old computer smoothly UNTIL I tried to do an Easy Transfer form my 64 bit Win7 computer to this newly set up 32 bit computer. Windows tells me that I can not do an Easy Transfer from a 64 bit to a 32 bit computer. So there. I'm stuck having to set up everything manually. Any Ideas?