So i have Windows 7 x64 bit Home Premium
I thought of installing another OS with 32 bit...I thought Windows XP Professional x32 bit
Will it slow down my computer somehow when running different OSes or it just takes up my hard drive space`?
Before you ask why?
The 64 bit version have made me struggle for running some old games such as Diablo 1 with all colors messed up....
Managed to DL a fix, but some of them old ones still will not work properly so yeah.
Will it or not slow down my computer somehow?
I heard something about x32 bit not supporting more than 4 GB's of RAM. Not sure if it's true.
I had W7 32bit before. Switched it up to 64Bit and suddenly a lot of my games ran more smooth.
So in my experience 64Bit is the way to go.
Yes i'm all aware of the RAM limits and such. And i'm with you here with 64bit OS being a good OS and all. But my question in general was will it harm my performance on my default OS later or just takes up my Hard Drive space and let's me choose between OSes i run.
RAM limits sure do might cause some lag in certain games with high quality, but mainly i want XP for playing older games so that shouldn't be a problem
Shouldn't make a difference to your default OS, given it's not running unless you boot it.
I could be wrong, but I'm 90% sure I'm not.
im not sure if your computer will vomit blood if you try it, or if the 32bit just wont register over 4GB. even if you have 50GB
' Wrote:Will it slow down my computer somehow when running different OSes or it just takes up my hard drive space`?
There's no difference in speed whether you have one, two or any other amount of operating systems on your computer as long as you're only using one of them at a time, as you are. It's nothing to worry about.
If you're unsure about how to actually do it, though, there's plenty of good guides if you google "Installing Windows XP after Windows 7". The most tricky part is partitioning and finding a location to install XP to if you've only got one disk/partition on your current system - otherwise it shouldn't be a problem.
tl;dr: No, it won't harm the performance of any other operating system you've got installed on your computer in your case.
EDIT:
' Wrote:im not sure if your computer will vomit blood if you try it, or if the 32bit just wont register over 4GB. even if you have 50GB
Nothing will happen whatsoever beyond the 32-bit OS (XP, in this case) not being able to use more than ~3-3.5 GB of that RAM, depending on how much memory you've dedicated to or got installed on your graphics card.
You just have to partition your HDD's - you can't just switch from 32 bit to 64 bit, you'll have to set things up so that some stuff is on the 32 bit portion of the HDD and some on the 64 bit portion.
While it won't slow your system down per se, XP does only recognize a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, but it will only use a maximum of about 3.5 GB for itself. (3.42, actually)
' Wrote:While it won't slow your system down per se, XP does only recognize a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, but it will only use a maximum of about 3.5 GB for itself. (3.42, actually)
Again, that's due to your video card's memory having to be included in that equation, amongst other things, but it probably won't affect speed much if all you're doing in the 32-bit OS is running old games. Again, nothing to worry about.
' Wrote:You just have to partition your HDD's - you can't just switch from 32 bit to 64 bit, you'll have to set things up so that some stuff is on the 32 bit portion of the HDD and some on the 64 bit portion.
What do you mean? Whether you're running a 32-bit or 64-bit OS doesn't matter at all when it comes to accessing your files, nor does it affect the hard drive. The only limitation you've got on that front is that you can't normally/easily have both operating systems (at least when it comes to Windows) on the same partition, and that has nothing to do with the architecture of the OS.
EDIT: Or, well, technically it does to some degree have something to do with the architecture of the OS, but not whether it's a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system.
Thanks Error you pretty much cleared it up for me.
And to everybody else thanks...
If its for old games, how about vitualbox or somesuch emulator to save you the hassle of partitioning etc.?