There are 2 parts to this 32/64 bit equation. Your hardware has to be 64 bit, and your operating system has to be written for it. It is possible to run a 32 bit operating system on 64 bit hardware, but not the opposite. 64 bit hardware existed before Windows 7 became the first Windows operating system that used it in a practical way (there was a 64 bit version of Windows XP, but it didn't work well - only the most hardcore enthusiasts ever used it). So your 2007 computer may be 64 bit capable, and the Windows 10 you loaded now makes use of it. In that case, you will address the extra RAM.
When I check it with system, it says it is 32 bit. When I query Google it says the Precision 380 is 64 bit.
i first tried to install the 64 bit version of Windows 10. It didnt work. installed the 32 bit and everything worked.
I have not been able to install any 32 bit programs on 64 bit Dell computer.
I don't like the wording of that quote, but there's a good number there.
There could be ways around that limit but I dont know if the processors used them. I haven't looked at the architecture of an Intel processor since 8086. Back when registers were 16 bit, they used a paging system where you could address 64k starting at a wider address set by the page register to end up accessing 1 meg.
You should've gone the other way and bought something new. It'll last longer (as someone else said- your motherboard could go at any moment) and also be more "future friendly".
Put a 64bit OS on it, then if you really need to run your older 32bit software applications and something like Windows 10 won't run it (which is unlikely anyway) then install a 32bit virtual machine on your system. Problem solved.
But as someone else also mentioned, the experience gained cannot be measured.
@micheal-daubyn-2
I'm pretty pleased with the out come. It's really alot faster booting up and changing programs. Funny, but the new processor did the most for speeding it up. I could only install Carlson's 2019 version as the 2020 version is 64 bit only.
The new video card supports two monitors, so another monitor is my next upgrade.
I installed everything in steps so in case things didn't work, i would know what caused the problem.
The SSD did speed things up some, but I installed the processor last and things got really fast. It's possible there was something wrong with the old processor because the computer was abnormally slow before the updates.
