Best way to change from 32bit to 64bit without buying new PC?

As the title asks, what's the best way to change from 32bit to 64 without buying new PC?

I want to try some movie editing and things like that, but every editing suite I've tried hangs and crashes and I read in a few places it's because I need more ram. I've also been led to believe that no matter how much ram I have my 32bit pc wont use more than 2 gig at one time, and that 64 will use all I can give it and more.

I'm clueless about this sorta stuff. Any advice much appreciated.

actually to the best of my knowledge you can have up to 3gb of ram at a time on 32bit pc's

reply to post by wigit


You need to make sure your hardware is 64 bit capable. Below is a link to an article that gives you some information that should help.

www.lytebyte.com...

If your processor is not 64bit capable you won't be able to upgrade.

reply to post by wigit


Install the 64bit version of your operating system.

Originally posted by seenavv
actually to the best of my knowledge you can have up to 3gb of ram at a time on 32bit pc's

From what I understand, in the past you had to match your ram...

If you have one gig in one slot you need another one gig in the next one.

The computer I use right now had 3 gigs in it (1X1g, 1X2g), and it was having all sorts of conflicts.
I removed the one gig chip, and have had virtually (lol) zero problems.

It is correct that you can have up to 3 gigs, and I believe you can have 4, but it won't utilize the total.

sidenote... I use my cpu for music production, and don't have too much of an issue. Of course, video production tends to require more of a heavyweight I suppose.

This link may help:

32-bit and 64-bit Windows

Unless you're installing 4 or more gig of ram, there's no point to updating to 64-bit.

My laptop has a 3gigs of ram one 1gig ram in one slot and 2gig ram in the other slot and I have not had any problems. Windows 32-bit can utilize 3.5 gigs of ram if you have 4gigs installed or all 4gigs if you have 64-bit installed.

You also have to take in the limits set on which version of Windows 7 64-bit you use.

Win 7 Home Basic - 8gigs ram
Win7 Home Premium - 16 gigs ram (this version is the one the vast majority of people have)
Win 7 Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate 192gigs ram
en.wikipedia.org...

If you want to use a 64-bit OS you need at least 4gig ram to be effective and a 64-bit processor.

Thanks ATSers for your help. I'll have to try digest some of all that and see what I can do.

Also you can't upgrade your OS to 64-bit from 32-bit. You'll have to do a clean install.