Forget the “7” code name, which was already out there, or the 2010 release date, which was also neither new nor set in stone.
The most concrete news to come out of Microsoft Corp.’s leak of a few sparse details about the next version of Windows is that it will continue to come in both 32- and 64-bit editions.
That will likely cause many Windows users, primarily businesses, to sigh with relief. PC vendors and large software makers, who see more-powerful 64-bit PCs as key to driving demand for both hardware and software in an increasingly Web-centric world, are likely to have a very different reaction.
The number of bits determines how large the chunks of data a component of the PC can process, which determines how much data it can handle and ultimately how fast it can perform. For instance, ’80s-era PCs with hybrid 8/16-bit architectures were limited to a maximum of 64KB of RAM.
In contrast, a modern PC running a 32-bit version of Windows XP can utilize up to 4GB of RAM. Meanwhile, 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista can support up to 128GB of physical RAM and 16TB of almost-as-fast virtual memory.
Combined, the two techniques can offer steep performance boosts for software ported from 32-bit to 64-bit. And they enable software such as database-driven or multimedia applications that were formerly infeasible on 32-bit PCs.
