Will low spec computer, run better with XP,32bit or 7,64bit?

[Anteries]

Hi I've got an older Athlon dual core 2200 MHz, with 2 GB of RAM.

Obviously this is not a very powerful computer, but I wanted to ask whether people thought I would get better performance by installing Windows XP 32-bit or Windows 7,64bit.

I'm not quite sure how big the benefit of having a 64-bit operating system is, and whether there are significant performance gains?

[abaxas]

64 bit will offer you nothing but driver headache.

But in relality, if there is enough disk space, any version of windows post 2000 will be fine.

[Anteries]

64 bit will offer you nothing but driver headache.

But in relality, if there is enough disk space, any version of windows post 2000 will be fine.

Hi thanks for your reply, just so I'm clear, do you mean Windows XP

[abaxas]

Hi thanks for your reply, just so I'm clear, do you mean Windows XP

No,

Any will do, with vista being the least best option.

[Anteries]

Sorry read post 2000 as pre 2000 lol.

[jim]

Performance gains are negligible. For least driver headache, I would go 32-bit XP but 32-bit 7 should be fine.

[Sputnik]

Performance gains are negligible. For least driver headache, I would go 32-bit XP but 32-bit 7 should be fine.

I agree with that, Not much (if any) advantage of running old hardware with a modern OS. It is usually more hassle than it is worth.

If your still tempted by Windows 7 maybe look at the motherboard manufacturers site to see if any drivers are suitable ?

[GT-R]

I have Windows 7 running on my old Athlon xp with Abit NF7SV2 motherboard. Finding drivers wasnt an issue, i only installed drivers for wifi and the rest were either found by window or on windows update.

I did have to change the gpu from a fx5500 to a 6200 to select the native resolution for the monitor though.

[j.col]

also agree with win 7 32bit.
but as above said, check for drivers if you have a onboard gpu.
on my mums pc i had to buy a hd3450 to run win 7

"If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit).
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit).
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver."

[spoon_]

You should think of getting a faster hard drive to go with W7 [if that's your OS of choice]

I'm forced to use 40GB old dog Hitachi HDD now and W7 takes 7 minutes to load to usable desktop, pretty horrendous.

What's your hard drive like?

[vinnyT]

Check out your systme with the Windows 7 Compatibility tool here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/com...s/default.aspx, this should tell you if you are likely to have any driver issues.