News: 1589437812

4GB limit doesn't leave much for apps and programs...

Say's someone who has never heard of PAE: [1]see here

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/physical-address-extension

Windows 10 32-bit doesn't support more than 4GB of RAM, even with PAE.

Microsoft originally enabled PAE to support >4GB RAM on 32-bit desktop systems. (IIRC, this was back in the WinXP days). However, when people started using it, they discovered that many drivers crashed if there was >4GB RAM, because they were doing things like storing addresses in 32-bit variables etc. As a result, they issued a patch that limited all 32-bit desktop systems to ~3.5GB RAM. Although PAE might be enabled to support other features like NX, any RAM that would not fit into the normal 4GB address space would be ignored.

32-bit Windows Server systems could have >4GB RAM using PAE. Microsoft figured that the companies that make server hardware are the sort of companies that would fix their drivers to support PAE. The companies that make consumer hardware are often not that kind of company.

See:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/memory/memory-limits-for-windows-releases

"X86 client versions of Windows don’t support physical memory above the 4GB mark"

Also see a long, technical explanation written at the time by someone who thought MS should have enabled PAE even though it caused crashes. (I respectfully disagree with his opinions - I think MS did the right thing - but I greatly respect his technical investigations and his thorough documentation of this issue):

https://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm

PAE has been around since the Pentium pro, and Microsux Windblows has never supported it for the desktop.

I'm honestly surprised it took them this long. Pretty much the only people using 32bit Windows these days are either existing people with older PCs, or some machines in certain circumstances that run applications/hardware that doesn't support 64bit Windows (possibly an ancient 16bit app). These are unlikely in home use and mainly just in some certain business situations, plus for these the 32bit media is still available for companies to install.

Either way, no reason at all for PC makers to pre-install 32bit Windows 10 with their kit in this day and age.

Worth noting too, that if you are still using an older 32bit processor, many of those machines (even laptops) probably have a socketed CPU, so are upgradable if push comes to shove (money), and someone needs to make do, compared to the cost of jumping ship to 10th Gen Intel and all the additional problems that might create.

Let's not create more landfill crud for the sake of it.

32-bit works as a test VM, smaller download. Definitely NOT a "daily driver". But Win-10-nic isn't a "daily driver" for me ANYWAY and until MS stops supporting 32-bit applications running on that platform [which they probably will some day, when they DUMP the Win32 API and kill ALL backward compatibility and non-TIFKAM applications FOREVER] I'll continue to use the 32-bit version to test things, as needed...

Not so strangely, you can find 32-bit versions of Linux and FreeBSD if you need a 32-bit OS. Not so amazingly, they run just fine on systems with less than 4G of RAM. And those systems, amazingly enough, ALSO seem to work just fine for a LOT of things, as long as you're not running something *PIGGY*.

Last year, at an "at that time" Win-10-nic-only shop, I was tasked to work on integration of a system that used an RPi to control things [naturally running Linux on the RPi]. As they only had windows machines, I brought in an old (2003-ish) Toshiba laptop that had Linux on it to do the editing, since ssh and "remote X11" worked really well, AMAZINGLY well, on a laptop with ~500M of RAM running about 1Ghz. About the only thing it would NOT do was run Firefox because FF has become such a PIG even on Linux...

(seeing me use a 17 year old laptop to do my work more effectively than with a brand new Win-10-nic box, they soon handed me a Win-10-nic box to be turned into a Linux box - I put Devuan on it). And of course, having Linux was absolutely necessary for creating RPi SD card images.

Not saying there isn't still a market for 32bit Windows, this is about MS discontinuing the OEM "pre-installed" Win10 32bit images. Retail/volume license versions still continue, so no issues with using Win10 32bit on an older machine, VM etc.

Too cheap tablets?

I dont think the reason is the PC , there CANT be many 32 bit laptops left , more likely people , probly even in industry have installed 32 bit on newer hardware out of some paranoia about compatitbility

I used Mac, SunOs (not Solaris) and Linux in that order as a desktop at work since the 80s, though I did have a Win3.1 laptop for a while until I could put Linux on the HP one I then got. My colleagues were a mix of Linux and Windows to taste. It's true we were techs so 'office productivity' was secondary to tech productivity and we often built our own tools. Linux is still my main desktop/laptop and Win (XP) runs in a VM if I really need it. I don't pretend I'm mainstream but I doubt I'm really niche.

WinXP, M$ should have you burned at the stake, Heathen !

In what way is this relevant?

The subheading.

I've owned dogs for many years.

and for once, I don't disagree with Microsuck !

32bit Windows 10, I mean.

32bit Windows 7 was rare enough, only ever on bottom of the barrel Atoms and I really thought those had been withdrawn a long time ago.

I wonder who was buying it, and if they knew?

32bit Windows 10 does have a use - it'll still run Windows 3.x software.

Ok, so that's a very rare requirement these days.

A relative does use 32bit win-10 for this reason though. Larousse, noted French dictionariers, did a fantastic Windows 3 edition of their English / French dictionary way back in the 1990s. It had literally everything in it, it was massively comprehensive.

Then up popped the Internet, and it went online. Trouble was, and still is, that the on-line edition (even the paid-for one) is massively lacking in content in comparison to that Windows 3.1 software. So this relative has been keeping a 32bit Windows PC running ever since, simply to keep that software working.

Looks like I'm going to have to spin up a VM, running XP or 32bit Win 7, or something.

Another thing a 64-bit Windows does not do is running MS-DOS applications out of the box. You have to install an emulator, such as DOSBOX, or install VM software and run MS-DOS in it (not sure if it is possible with VMWare or VirtualBox these days)

These limitations really boil down to the decisions AMD made when x86 was extended to 64 bits. The VM86 mode is not supported when running as a 64-bit CPU.

Ha! Yes, I recently had to run some old DOS software (had to - well, really just for nostalgia), and needed to run up an XP VM for that purpose.

VMWare Player still offers "MSDOS" as a guest type.

I think AMD's decision was fairly sensible; 16 bit modes had to go, and if not then, when? And of course they chose wisely by keeping a 32bit mode too. I expect that'll go too in due course, and then another generation can mourn the passing of the technology of their youth.

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last; I think MS has done a fantastic job of backward compatibility. To be running (quite happily) a piece of 1990s software on a modern, maintained version of Windows 25 years later is really quite an achievement.

Ha! Yes, I recently had to run some old DOS software (had to - well, really just for nostalgia), and needed to run up an XP VM for that purpose.

If you needed to run DOS software, why not run a DOS VM? FreeDOS can be had for, well, free. And unlike ReactOS, it's *already* usable for many DOS tasks.

DOSBOX is probably the easiest to set up for casual MS-DOS use. It includes an emulated DOS, so no need to install FreeDOS or any other additional package. (If you really want, it is possible to run a real MS-DOS or FreeDOS inside DOSBOX, but that is more complex and usually not needed).

It is slower than a VM, but on modern machines, its emulation executes programs at least as fast as they ran on actual 80's PC:s. There is actually a setting for slowing things down, for some games.

> I think AMD's decision was fairly sensible; 16 bit modes had to go, and if not then, when?

AMD did not remove the 16-bit support entirely. At start-up even the 64-bit x86 CPU runs in "real" 16-bit mode. You could in principle boot it into MS-DOS, but I suspect the modern peripherals and motherboards could cause compatibility issues. Also, if you run a 32-bit OS on it, the VM86 mode is still available.

I've been spinning up "frozen" Windows NT and XP VMs to run that sort of legacy software.

(Start it, copy in the work, copy out the result, kill it and roll it back)

To be honest, these days you can probably emulate Win 3.1 in a browser. I wonder if anyone has done that yet?

No, 32 bit Win10 doesn't run Win3.x software, not really. I'm thinking by default the NTVDM and WOW that was on NT3.1 to XP is missing. The 32 bit Win10 does run 32 bit VB6 that won't work on 64 bits Win7 / 8 / 10.

I just found out recently too! 32bit in this day? Ghast~Flabbered!

Nah, I'll just stick with Windows XP SP3 if we are throwing back to 2004 thanks.

"Buyers reliant on 32-bit apps don't need to worry, as their code will work just fine on 64-bit Windows"

I'm aware of one in house system written in C/C++ that makes assumptions about the size of a pointer. We tried to make it work on 64 bit systems, but the code is so convoluted that a complete rewrite would be required. I'm sure this isn't the only system that would break in this way...

You do know that 64 bit windows can run 32 bit code un modified? It’s even slightly faster running apps that don’t need 64 bit pointers and more than 3.5GB of memory in 32 bit mode.

C++ convoluted? You don't say!

(Not a C++ fan)

Run your 32bit Windows NT or XP binary on 64bit Windows 7 or 10 and it runs perfectly.

It doesn't even know it's on Windows 10, as Microsoft fake almost everything. Including redirecting unauthorised writes to protected folders and files onto a per-user location.

In fact a huge amount of commercial Windows software is still 32bit - including some from Microsoft.

Many VB6 activeX controls don't work at all on 64 bit Windows. They do on 32bits. Some VB6 programs are still maintained and distributed. Curiously the SAME non-working VB6 does work under Wine32 on 64 bit Linux even one using the RS232, but the WINE COMx mapped to a Linux USB port with a serial adaptor, though you may discover your Wine is 64 bit only and have to uninstall it, set an environment variable and re-install WINE. IMO the only point of WINE is to run some old Windows program that has no new 64 bit version. Or else you are into the VM overhead.

On the desktop is always coming this year. Linux was at war with Microsoft: therefore Linux has always been at war with Microsoft.

The year of Linux on the desktop is the year you put it on your desktop. For me that year was 1998, in short, every year is the year of Linux on the desktop.

I still occasionally come across crappy old 32 bit business apps that have 16 bit installers that clients insist are vital to their business. There is no 16 subsystem on 64 bit windows, so you have to really mess about to get them to install. Usually involves recording the installation steps into a script on a 32 bit machine using sysinternals tools, then replaying the steps on the 64 bit machine.

I still occasionally come across crappy old 32 bit business apps that have 16 bit installers that clients insist are vital to their business.

Although sometimes you can find an actual 32-bit installer in there. The 16-bit installer is sometimes (often?) an installer loader, meant to blast you with advertisements for their other products and services while the real installer does it's work in the background.

First time I've heard of a 32-bit Win10....

...for obvious reasons I'd rather go with 64-bit everything to make better use of memory of 8Gb and higher....

a) Tablets with 64 bit Atoms but 32 bit EFI. These had 32bit Win 10, but could have had 64 bit? The 64 bit version of Debian but not the Mint I tried can deploy 32 bit boot code and a 64 bit OS.

b) Lots of 64 bit Atoms could do with one more address pin at least. Insane HW limitation to 2 G byte addressing! I've had several 64bit Atom based Netbooks (Windows wiped & Linux mint install) and given them to grateful kids. The 64 Bit Windows, unlike 32bit vs 64 bit Linux, does seem to need more RAM than 2G to be useful. There seems to be no penalty installing 64 bit Linux rather than 32 bit on a low spec Intel, there does seem to be with Windows.

c) Even some 32 bit CPUs with NT4.0 enterprise could use PAE to access more than 4G, most could do 4G RAM if the motherboard allowed. But with XP MS decided to remove PAE support and even by default reduce program access to less than 2 G RAM. Linux seems to still support PAE, though some distros and applications are no longer supporting 32 bit. Waterfox was only ever 64 bit.

d) The connection between addressable memory and supposed CPU "bits"/word size is actually not inherent but a per CPU, memory controller and system decision. Obviously paging can be nasty (the 8088 / 8086 unlike the 286 was really a jumped up 8 bit 8085 with 64K paging and actual 8 bit Z80 went on to be a core in chips with up to 2 M byte external addressing.

So if the existing system is really only 32 bit there is staying with old Win7 or Win10 (or even XP) and not connecting to the Internet, or in the short term Linux (but like Windows, some applications have no 32 bit version). Or if too limited EFI, CPU or RAM, using 64 bit Linux.

Apple ditched 32 bit a while ago? But the x86-64 is their fourth Mac platform (68K, PowerPC, x86-32) and they might go ARM.

Wow are Windows users still suffering this 32 or 64 bit rubbish?

Apple resolved that years ago.

They did, until Catalina came along.

Backward (bug) compatibly for legacy software. Jobs didn’t care, so there were bowls of protest when a new version of Mac OS caused (cough) photoshop to no longer work.

One of computers, is a 10 year old Lenovo running 32bit version of 1909.

It slow to start, but works fine after around 5 minutes

Wasn't it Catalina that ditched 32bit applications on macOS?