64 bit

[Victor]

I'm going off to college in 6 months, so I'm getting a new laptop. I was wanting to get a 64 bit b/c they are supposed to process twice as fast. However, how well XP Pro 64 bit edition work and is it possible to run 32 bit programs, possibly using some emulator?

Thanks in advance

[Jordan]

I haven't used XP 64 bit but Vista 64 allows you to execute 32 bit applications. I imagine (I'm about 99.9999999% sure) that Windows XP 64 is the same. I say this because most of Microsoft's applications (such as office) are still 32 bit. You may run into a few problems but no show-stoppers - IE: Cisco VPN Client doesn't work in 64bit.

Note, they will only process faster in applications that are actually 64bit.

[Turk4n]

You will be able to run almost ever 32 bits applications without any problem. However running 64bit with lower memory than 4gb would be considered stupid, in my opinion; Due to the allocation of memory...
So feel free ask more, I am positive that there are people here with more knowledge about it !

[Victor]

Would it even be worth bothering with 64 bit?

[Turk4n]

Would it even be worth bothering with 64 bit?

With 4GB + ram, I would consider it worth, however some programs might run bad due to not "made" for the 64 bit architecture.