Win7 64-bit slow on laptop?

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Useless

Bravo
Jun 14, 2002
5,886
63
Scotland
Hi, bit of a problem. I put Win7 64-bit on my laptop, thinking that 64 would be surely faster than 32. Problem is it's noticeably slower than XP used to be and I know I need to take it off, it's horrible, constant audio distortion, painful data transfer and on and on.

Anyway, if I get rid of it should I put 32-bit on or should I go back to XP? I like how Win7 handles networks and other things and it's been a success on my much faster PC (that's 32-bit). I like XP too though and at least I know that works. Will 32-bit be faster and work better with my laptop's hardware? Or is Win7 always going to be too slow on an older laptop like mine?

Specs:

1 Gb RAM
1.86GHz processor
Onboard vid / sound / wifi
Bog standard HD, not sure about the speed

Cheers
 
what the others said:

64bit version is only useful when you have at least 4GB of RAM.

You specs refer to an obviously "old" model of notebooks and since Windows7 is newer, imo faster and more clever regarding network and driver apsects you should go for Windows 7 again ofcourse BUT this time 32bit version...Everything should be fine by then.
 
I wouldn't even run Windows 7 with just 1GB of ram. A base installation is always going to consume more memory then a base install of Windows XP. When you start running apps you'll easily dry out that 1GB. Stick with XP, or upgrade with at least another GB of ram.

As for the 64bit/32bit discussion, usually there are no difference between the two in performance, unless the application has been optimized for 64 bit. SQL servers benefit from 64 bit, but i don't know a whole lot of other things that does. 64 bit apps are usually also going to take up more memory, because of the larger address space.
 
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Thanks for the answers. Looks like I'm going back to XP on the laptop then, since upgrading is out of the question. I only put Win7 on it in the first place because XP gave me an unrecoverable BSOD and I had to format, then the XP key failed to work. Cheers for the help :thumb:
 
Sometimes if you have a valid XP key on the machine but dont have the original CD the key wont work if its a slightly different version, it wont recognise the key when you enter it.
To get around that in the past I just install any old dodgy key that I know works with the CD im using and then when windows is installed just change the key to the one on the machine so its a valid install.
 
Well, weirdly I tried two different keys which have both worked for years in the past, and the CD I was installing from worked for years too. Suddenly now it doesn't, regardless of what key I used :( I might have to get another XP from somewhere. Sigh, nothing's ever easy.
 
on your cd can you find SETUPP.INI and paste the PID here

Example:

[Pid]
ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF
Pid=76477OEM

Im sure you'll get a working key a little bit after that ;)