Several older threads (more than 2+ years) had some discussion on this but I have just purchased a laptop that will come with 64-bit Windows 7 installed. I have read differing opinions on this recently but was curious what experience other Dopers have had using either or both editions (32 or 64) with Windows 7 and Office 2010?
64-bit lets you use more than 4GB of RAM. 32-bit lets you use more programs, drivers, and games. Some things still don’t work on 64-bit Windows, but they’re getting rarer and rarer.
IMO, don’t believe the hype unless you really need that much RAM. Most people don’t. But if you’ve already got 64-bit Windows and all you do is Office, you’ll be fine just sticking with it.
I know this is anecdotal, but I have run Win 7 64 bit since it came out and I have never run into a program that I could not run, and I’ve never heard anyone IRL that couldn’t either.
I’m not saying that there aren’t programs that it will not run (I am sure there are whole message boards of people complaining about them), but I think they are pretty few and far between.
Of course, YMMV.
64 bit Microsoft OSs (including the rarely-seen Windows XP 64-bit Edition) won’t run any 16-bit programs, period. This generally isn’t a big deal because you can handle it with emulators (Dosbox for 16-bit DOS programs and games, and Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise/Ultimate provide you with a free Windows XP emulator which can run 16-bit programs), but if you’re some enterprise and you have some commonly-used piece of 16-bit software, it might be a royal pain to use 64-bit OSs. Not that there’s any excuse to be using such software in 2011, but the enterprise world is what it is.
32-bit Office 2010 will happily run on 64-bit Win7.
I have an old-ish laser printer that HP didn’t bother releasing Win7 drivers for (thanks for screwing with HP’s corporate culture, Carly!), and it was a challenge getting it to work, mainly because I first tried a hack of using a different driver rather than starting off with the recommended solution of piping it through a virtual machine. I’m not happy with the results (the printing speed is lousy now, apparently due to the other driver, and I can’t figure out out to fix it), but it basically works and I don’t print enough to really put more effort into getting it right.
I agree that many enterprise users use software for way to long and the ability to run 16 bit code is frequently important to them, but I think it is probably safe to assume our original poster is not running an IT department.
In fact, Microsoft strongly recommends using 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows unless you have a specific need.
Apparently you’ve never met me or read this thread. 
I’m very happy with Windows 7 64-bit in general, but when I first got my new PC that used it (had to - my trusty old Windows XP machine died a sudden death) I ran into several problems with my existing software.
Neither Microsoft’s own Visual Studio 6 nor the COMPAQ FORTRAN compiler that requires it (both of which I need for my consulting work) would even install under Windows 7 64-bit. Fortunately, after I upgraded to Win7 Pro and installed Microsoft’s free Virtual PC and Windows XP mode packages (which require XP Pro) I was able to install and run the above under a virtual PC running Windows XP inside of Win7.
My old PalmPilot software wouldn’t install at all, even in the Virtual copy of Windows XP - and the newer PalmPilot software wouldn’t recognize my old PalmPilot.
And as someone pointed out, many DOS and Win16-based programs don’t work at all under Windows 7.
Why does Microsoft recommend running 32-bit Office on a 64-bit OS? I too have seen this but no explanations or reasons are given.
Just do not get the Click-to-Run version of Outlook 2010.
Blackberries and iPhones will not sync to it.
Thanks for the info - but I have no other devices that I want to link to Outlook 2010. Are there other issues with 64-bit Outlook with regard to IMAP email accounts, etc? Also, are there other issues with the other programs in Office (Excel, Word, Access, Project, Visio, etc) that would give me concern in running 64-bit Office 2010?
plug-ins/add-ons have to be the same “bitness” as the Office programs they’re written for. you cannot use 32-bit plugins on 64-bit Office programs, and evidently there are rather few 64-bit plugins out there. So MS recommends sticking with 32-bit Office for now unless you have a real need to use 64-bit. ETA: it’s the same reason the default Internet Explorer on 64-bit Windows is 32-bit, and it will not let you set the 64-bit IE as the default. (end edit.)
AFAIK the only one of the bundle that might currently benefit from being 64-bit is Excel, and then only if you’re dealing with some massive data sets. But that’s a case where if you need 64-bit support, you already know you do.
The 64-bit IE only exist so it can act like a plugin for other apps.
I do have a question related to this thread, though. Can 32-bit apps access the larger memory of the 64 bit OS. If not usually, can they be coded to do so with programs that need to be 32-bit otherwise?
No. they get 2 GiB by default. if they have the “large address aware” flag set, they can get 4 GiB.