Personal Computers Questions

Can I create a 64 bit image from a 32 bit system?

by on March 18, 2011

Q: Without re-imaging; can I create a 64-bit environment from a 32-bit windows 7 on a machine that is actually 64-bit capable? Yes I know its backwards…its corporate, what can I say.

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4 Responses to “Can I create a 64 bit image from a 32 bit system?”
  1.  

    Sounds like you want to take advantage of 64-bit Windows 7 and so you can handle more that 4GB of Memory, however your company’s IT department only has 32-bit Windows image available.

    Without a 64bit OS installed as your primary operating system there isn’t anything you can do.

    There really isn’t anything you can do, other than try to promote a shift to a 64bit OS with your management and senior techs.

     

    Mark (Uber Geek) says: on March 18, 2011 at 8:45 am

  2.  
    Picked as best answer

    This isn’t exactly what you want to do but you could always install a virtual machine if you are running windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise.

    You could create a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD), install windows 7 64bit and then set the VHD as the primary boot device. And you can run 64bit OS that way.

    I have not done this so there may be performance lag. As well your OS still will probably not utilize larger amount of memory. This would be a work around and not the first option.

     

    jselden73 (Uber Geek) says: on March 18, 2011 at 11:41 am

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      Yeah, with the virtual machine you wouldn’t get any performance benefits and wouldn’t be able to use >4GB of memory.

      The only real reason for doing something like that would be for doing small scale software testing when no other hardware was available.

       

      Mark (Uber Geek) says: on March 18, 2011 at 11:47 am

  3.  

    Thanks Guys…doing it anyway for the software I can run but sucks to lose that performance. Appreciate all your responses.

     

    ChucknVA (Newbie) says: on March 18, 2011 at 10:59 pm