Windows 7 64bit

[highlander]

Win7 64-bit (and even WinVista 64-bit) has generally been very good to me in terms of driver support. WinXP 64-bit was a fairly rare beast, and the driver support on it was pretty much atrocious.

You'll likely be fine on Windows 7 64-bit. As always, take note of all your PC's major hardware components first (use Device Manager to get a list of them), so you can find the proper drivers for them online if Windows 7 doesn't auto-detect them properly.

[gumby6371]

I remember upgrading my 256 MB hard disc to a 10 GB and my mate saying "what are you wasting your money for 256 MB is plenty".

My mid range graphics card requires 2 power inputs and has 1 GB of RAM built in.

My phone has 16 GB of built in storage with an option to add another 48 GB and more processing power than NASA had for the apollo missions.

Moore's law in full effect

The universal law however is the more space or power available the more we fill it/waste it with sh*t we don't use, need or want.
This applies to computers, engines, boot space, houses and many, many other things but most of all middle and upper management jobs!!!

[ally406]

64-bit all day long. You don't need more than 4GB to get an advantage, the memory management on x64 is superior to x86. Ordinarily a single user process cannot use more than 2GB of RAM on 32 bit Windows, you don't have this limitation with x64. Paged pool memory is also fairly restricted on 32 bit Windows although you would probably only run into issues on something like a busy file server. You shouldn't have issues running 32 bit apps, and nearly any recent bit of hardware will be supported. Plus if you want to add more memory at a later date you're not restricted, with 32 bit you'd have to do a complete re-install.

[leestudd30]

Well I finally managed to install it last night! Haven't got more than 4GB of memory yet but I noticed before the install I had 3.49GB of usable memory and I now have 3.74GB of usuable memory! But I didn't realise you couldn't upgrade to 64 bit, had to do a complete new install and install the laptop drivers again, good job I'd backed up my files and music though!