stopping support of Windows 7

[aw27]

If we play DirectX games, do graphics or movie edition or use big databases the performance difference between 32 and 64-bit are huge.
If the software is doing scientific calculations, encryption or serving a large number of web pages 64-bit is necessary these days (and I don't think they are still producing 32-bit servers).

If our requirements are rudimentary we will do well with the 32-bit and can bash the progress to our heart's content. But progress will continue despite our rage.

[jj2007]

 

[hutch--]

Someone who I will not mention once said something about "Who would ever need more than 640k of memory on a PC ? Win16 had 16 meg, win 32 had 4 gig and current win64 has 128 gig. There is no doubt that Microsoft want you to keep buying ever bigger computers so you can buy ever larger software from them but the general trend with modern software is big, bigger and even bigger than that.

Some of the software I use with video turns up as 90 to 100 megabytes and expands to much bigger again when installed and when you look at the installation on disk, it is full of extra DLLs that perform a wide range of tasks. Like an ever growing list of user applications, 32 bit versions tend to drop dead when they hit big files where the 64 bit versions can slug it out with far larger files.

Have a look at the size of Android apps as you download them from the Google store, it would make a PC programmer blush, for some piddlingly trivial app you often see 16 meg or larger. Everyone can hide behind old apps that use old OS versions architecture but sooner or later that approach gets left behind. Win32 is in its twilight, win16 died long ago and only the old farts keep writing MS_DOS 16 bit apps.

[jj2007]

Slightly off topic, but I don't want to open a new thread: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/calc-exe-is-now-open-source-theres-surprising-depth-in-its-ancient-code/