Windows 7 Pro 64bit on netbooks?

Hi,

I'm looking to get a new netbook, and to my dismay I've noticed that tons of them come with Windows 7 starter. I've heard pretty bad things about it.

Will 7 Pro 64bit work on netbooks? I only have an upgrade disk (student deal!), not a true install disk, so I guess if I wanted to upgrade I'd have to get an external dvd drive of some sort, right?

Finally, would it even be worth it? Is Starter that awful, and would pro run smoothely on a netbook?

Thanks for any advice.

 

Pro ( 32Bit) ran smoothly on my netbook. IMHO Win. 7 should run smoothly on anything. It's not a resource hog at all so you will be fine.

Yes you can use an external usb Dvd drive to install the OS; which I did. I'm sure the same can be done using a regular jump drive.

Don't have any experience with Starter.

 

Which netbook is it? If it has an Intel N or Z series Atom processor, it will not support Win 7 64 bit. I'm guessing your network has an Atom in it and hence will not support 64 bit. You could upgrade it to Win 7 Pro or Ultimate, 32 bit only...

 

The N4x5 series of Atom CPUs are 64bit...

 

This. All new netbooks with N450/455/470/475/550 are 64-bit compatible. Older netbooks with the N270/280/Z series are not.

 

Ok, thanks. That's thee thing, I'm looking for a netbook to buy and have not done so yet. So, hopefully I'll be able to get one with a 64 bit cpu. Thanks!

 

Also, I believe that Win7 64-bit has a minimum RAM requirement of 2GB?

Win7 Starter isn't too bad if you're just using your netbook for surfing the net and email and what not. It does have a 3 app limitation but you won't really be using more than 3 apps on a netbook for light use anyway.

 

1. Ram requirement is correct.

2. The three app limitation was removed before 7 Starter even became final.

 

You don't need an external dvd drive to install an OS in a netbook.A flash drive would be sufficient.Download this:
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com
Or from here:
http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool
It is from Microsoft.Simple and straitforward to use.

 

I've never seen a netbook with 4GB of ram, but different strokes I guess. Personally I see so reason to use a 64-bit OS on such hardware as an Atom. 32-bit is well more than adequate.

 

i don't really think there is a need for 64 bit on Atoms, especially since you will most likely never exceed 3 GB RAM - my mini 100 runs ultimate x32 (1GB ram, 2max)

 

There are a ton of benefits to 64bit other than just more RAM. 64bit apps have double the number of registers as well as guaranteed SSE functions and a number of other features that make overall processing faster.

The only reason to NOT move to 64bit is if you have too little RAM. Anything 2GB+ is fine.

 

would it be worth switching with 3gb ram?

 

I don't know if it's worth switching. That depends on how many 64bit apps you're going to run. But if you're buying new, you shouldn't go with 32bit.

 

IMHO there is no noticeable performance gain on such underpowered hardware, but i guess that if you are doing a new install anyway, 64 bit can't hurt

 

Exactly. I would not put 32bit on any new machine unless it simply doesn't support it. But that doesn't mean you should convert a running 32bit machine to 64bits without some thought. It will not make your machine magically faster. It can make some things faster, and will allow you to run more programs and use more memory if you have it physically there. If you're reloading your machine anyway, you should use the 64bit. I'm not sure I'd reinstall to just move to 64bit unless I had 4GB+ or RAM, though.

 

I agree.

I don't know if it would be worth the bother of switching... but if you're going to reinstall the OS anyway and you have both discs available, I'd go with 64-bit.

I would expect performance gains from 64-bit to be more noticeable on a weak processor like Atom (where cpu power is more of a bottleneck) than on a more powerful processor. But I haven't compared. I do have an Atom system but I've only ever run 64-bit Win 7 on it (never 32-bit). It runs fine.

Yup.

 

Maybe... But I notice better graphics performance on my Atom's under 32-bit. Everything seems more fluid and generally smoother than 64-bit. That's coming from an Atom N450. Especially iTunes. iTunes is horribly bloated, slow, and NOT my favorite piece of software, but it IS my music player of choice and it really likes 32-bit, but then it hasn't been released as a fully compatible 64-bit program either. It still runs out of the "Program Files (x86)" folder. Several of my other programs do as well, and generally they're just smoother. The transition from 32-bit to 64-bit has been a complete mess, industry wide IMO. Not one company, except the fruit company ( ), has the balls to say.... ONLY 64-bit OS's will be installed on ALL hardware from now on. Until that starts happening, it's still going to be a mess. Ugh.

 

Works great on mine, it has a Core 2 Duo though, not an Atom.

 

Put 32 bit Windows HP on my Sony Netbook (replaced Starter) issued faced for not going 64 bit was drivers. Make sure you can find all the required hardware drivers in 64 bit.

 

The atom chipset (at least N, not sure about D) only supports 2GB RAM max.