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Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

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Musubi:
I've got a 64 bit enabled cpu. I only installed 32 bit because I was afraid some software might not work, so I  have a few questions I would like to asks you

Is 32bit software compatible with a 64 bit operating system?
Is it worth upgrading to 64 bit?
Will find and run robot run on 64 bit windows 7?
Is there a  way I can keep my old program configuration and programs installed after the update? I mean I don't want to reinstall everything I have... Is there a backup program, or auto reinstaller or something like that, that would be nice.

I know 64 bit can use more ram. What's the biggest amount of RAM a single stick has, can you recommend me a RAM stick?

Darwin:
I know 64 bit can use more ram. What's the biggest amount of RAM a single stick has, can you recommend me a RAM stick?
-Musubi (April 03, 2010, 06:43 AM)
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This depends on what RAM your computer's chipset supports. A good starting point would be to determine what RAM is in your computer now (DDR, DDR2, DDR3?), You can download a tool like my favourite, SIW, and run it to find out the answers to these and many other questions about your hardware.

Dormouse:
Is 32bit software compatible with a 64 bit operating system?
-Musubi (April 03, 2010, 06:43 AM)
--- End quote ---

There's quite a lot that won't work.

Is it worth upgrading to 64 bit?
-Musubi (April 03, 2010, 06:43 AM)
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Depends on
a) whether you have programs that you want to use that don't run & whether there are acceptable alternatives to them
b) whether you use programs that will benefit from its ability to use the extra memory.

Where stuff works on both, I can't say that I've ever encountered differences in speed etc unless they work much better in a lot of RAM. For me that's mostly image programs.

steeladept:
You ask a great many questions that the final answer is just "it depends".  There is a great deal to these questions that are either not being considered or not addressed.  For example, what is the reason you are considering 64bit over 32bit?  Often, you will know when and why to switch.  If you are just switching because you have a 64bit processor, that is not a good reason in and of itself.  I have been running 32bit OS's on 64bit processors for about 5 or 6 years now at least (I got in on one of the first versions of the AMD Athalon64 processors which were 64bit) and it works fine.

Realize that switching from 32bit to 64bit in many ways is as large an overhaul as switching from Windows to Mac.  The biggest difference in the overhaul is there is no significant learning curve to the new OS.  As such, (and to answer one of your questions) you will have to manually reinstall everything - at least as far as I am aware.  This is not as strait forward as it may seem, however.  As an answer to another question, most of your well programmed software *SHOULD* work on the 64bit OS as Microsoft has built in a program to allow conversion.  That said not ALL software works and even those that do, may exhibit peculiar and/or unexpected results.  Moreover, since it is going through emulation, most software will actually function slower on 64bit if it is designed for 32bit operation.  The more problematic software issues are where they talk directly to the hardware.  In these cases you MUST use 64bit software or you will have issues.  Drivers are notorious for this, though some other programs utilize direct hardware access as well.

The RAM issue is a decent reason to upgrade if you will use all that ram, but I advocate a cheaper route.  Use a monitor to determine how much ram is currently utilized and only if you are consistently choking on the max ram should you consider this as a reason to upgrade.  Few software titles ever utilize that much ram anyway, so it is likely that you will not see significant RAM use unless you constantly work with many open programs at the same time.

As for your RAM hardware question, there are many dependencies for your question such as how much RAM can your Motherboard hold?  What is the maximum size the Motherboard can address?  And what configurations does the Motherboard support?  I have seen 8GB RAM chips (primarily designed for Servers that need to be purchased in matched sets to make 16GB per pair), but I have never seen a typical motherboard that supported more that 2GB/stick.  Only specialty boards (such as the server boards) have been designed for that kind of support from what I have seen.  The best place to look for answers to these questions is by going to your computer manufacturers website and look up the details of your system.  This information may also be found in the accompanying documentation from when you purchased it, but many people throw this out so I don't rely on that suggested source anymore.

mouser:
Here's what i would say:

All software should transfer over fine, including all DC software.  Migrating program settings rather than reconfiguring can be a pain and troublesome.

As has been said, the only real reason i would even consider moving is if my 32bit OS could only see a small amount of memory, and i needed a large amount. 

It's my judgment that this would only really happen if you have a bad motherboard that can only see 2gb of ram (which happened to me once), and you use some very serious academic/graphics/video applications that eat up memory like mad (like photoshop for serious stuff, etc.).

Assuming you don't use such programs extensively, just get yourself 4gb of ram and stick with 32bit, that's what i would say.

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