[francof]

I have now Windows 7 professional x86
I have two questions

I would like to switch to x64
Should I do it now under Windows 7 and then upgrade to Windows 10 or upgrade now with x86 to Windows 10 and then switch to x64 ?

Switching to x64 does require a complete new installation of all my programs or are they running in both environment? For example Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird?

Thanks in advance for your answers

[Kirill]

You have to reinstall from scratch anyway. Assuming your license is for Windows 7, you have to reinstall Windows 7 64 bit from scratch and then upgrade to 10. All apps will keep working, we're not on Linux here

[EmKa262]

Hello francof, you cant switch easily between 32 and 64 Bit. You have to reinstall the operating System for this. Your programs should run fine on any version if they arent very old. If you have programms from Windows xp and older it cant hurt to check in advance if they´re compatible.
If you want to make the upgrade to 10 then you have to do the 64 installation of Windows 7 before that.

[RalphS]

This is probably a moot point but...

- Only switch architectures if you have to. In particular: if your PC is low on RAM but as there's already 4GB in there you can't add more; and/or you have (or need to use) software that's only available in 64bits.

- Assuming a switch cannot be avoided, try to create and use an extra partition for Win64 if you can. That's because files and settings canNOT be migrated when switching architectures; yes your current software will most likely keep working (although you might need to get your hands on a 64bit edition in some cases and there is the possiblility some of your software will refuse to work on Win64).

So the best way to go about it is to have a secondary installation set up alongside "old" Win32 and then see how things turn out.

- In simple terms of installation steps, there's no need to install any other OS version than the one you intend to use if you own a valid license for either 7 or 10. Just install 10 and then feed it the 10 key if you bought license for it; or, if not, install 10 and feed it the 7 key instead (*).


(*) Only if your 10 build is newer than 10240. If it's 10240 then if you own the 7 license but no 10 license (yet) installing Win7 is, sadly, nonoptional. Use Microsoft's Media Creation Tool for a more recent edition in that case.