Dell M90 -- Any benefit to running Win 7 64-bit vs. 32-bit?

Well, I did the install. Everything seems to be working fine; though it feels pretty snappy, I can't really tell if it's snappier than an equivalent 32 bit install, given that my most immediate experience is with my previous 32 bit OS install, which was more than two years old and was seriously full of kludge when I reformatted my drive. Also, since I'd cloned my HDD to my SSD when I installed it six months ago, can't tell if that was one of the problems.

One of the issues I'm having a little trouble in understanding -- I've set up my OS directory on C: as a 30GB partition (this is an OS-only partition; I've set up separate partitions for Programs and Data). From whatever I'd read on the web before the install, 30GB should've been more than enough, and right after install, it was around 18GB full. After the install, I spent the next day updating (all the MS updates, including SP1) and then installing all my programs on the D: partition. I'm surprised to now find that my 30GB OS-only C: partition is almost full (around 27GB)! This is after allocating 2% to System Restore on the C: drive (only), moving the bulk of the paging file to another partition, cleaning up temporary junk files etc. (gotta keep the hibernation file, I almost always hibernate my laptop). Is this normal, or is something nasty going on in my new install?

 

Windows installs do take up a lot of space these days.
Anyway, if you installed a service pack, make sure you run the disk cleanup tool as "Administrator" and it will allow you to delete the files that it kept in case you want to uninstall the service pack (which take up a good chunk of space).

 

So...I'm back! Still with my Dell M90 -- will probably run it another year, since I've just paid Dell another years' worth of CompleteCover (also waiting for the new Haswell chip machines to come out before going in for something new).

Given that I'm with the M90 for another year or thereabouts, I was thinking of upgrading the RAM for some more pizzazz. I've already got 3MB RAM in; my question was -- Dell sells this machine as having a 4MB RAM limit. Does this have to do with the fact that it originally comes with a 32-bit OS, or is there actually a hardware limit? If the former, then since I'm using a 64-bit OS now, could I put in 16GM of RAM, or I'm limited by the hardware to 4MB?

Thanks.

 

The 945 chipset can do 4GB max, and you might be further limited by the Dell BIOS.

 

Thanks, Commander. Since I already have 3GB, do you think maxing it with another GB of RAM would be worthwhile (i.e., would it make a reasonably perceptible difference)?

I realize this is all subjective, but expert opinions are always useful!

 

It depends on what you do, but it won't hurt superfetch at the very least, if you tend to open/close a lot of programs, you might benefit from superfetch. If you multi-task heavily or tend to open a lot of browser tabs, you'll probably see a difference too.

 

(Should probably post this as a new thread, but as it's a continuing process...)

Thanks for all the input, all. I've now been running Win7 64-bit for a while, with all problems sorted out...which is making me somewhat more ambitious, I'm now thinking if it would be even better to upgrade it to Windows 8.1 Pro! (I have a license from the Microsoft offer when Win 8 first came out.)

From all that I've read so far, Windows 8.1 is faster and more efficient under the hood, which is what I'm basically interested in. I intend to boot straight to desktop, so I don't really care about all the cosmetic problems with Win 8 -- I don't intend to interact with the 'Live Tiles', etc. at all, so touch is not an issue for me.

Any thoughts, people (re compatibility with drivers, applications, general operation on a Dell M90 etc.)? I would appreciate any input before I put the time into this exercise.

Thanks.

 

The video card not being DirectX 10 compatible might slow some things down. With early W7 drivers, I had some screen flashes when it was booting up. System still runs.

 

Interesting -- not sure that I understand completely, but I'll take your word for it!

My M90 has an Nvidia Quadro FX 3500 video card with 512Mb of RAM; SIW (System Information for Windows by Gabriel Topala) says it's got DirectX 11 with the current driver I've got running, as well as WDDM.

Is that good (for running Win 8.1 on this machine)?