My friend has a nice desktop PC he bought a year or two ago. He bought it new with Windows 7 installed.
The system is 64-bit. I understand that 64-bit systems will have two programs folders, one for 64 bit apps and one for legacy 32 bit apps.
What I’m wondering is why there are two Internet Explorer folders, one 32 and one 64? The system was not ported over from an old one, or upgraded to 7, unless that was done in the store or something.
Also, is there any way to get the QuickLaunch icon to open the 64-bit IE instead of the 32-bit one? It seems to be doing that by default, which then creates issues with Flash Player.
Because there are two versions of internet explorer - you can’t run the 32 bit plugins (such as shockwave and flash I believe - that certainly used to be the case) in 64 bit windows explorer, and in fact in most cases on windows 7 you will be using the 32 bit version, you normally have to put some effort into using the 64 bit version.
Make a shortcut to the 64 bit version of IE by right clicking the program file and dragging to the desktop. Then right click the shortcut and select “Pin to taskbar”. You should then have a launch icon on the taskbar, that works in a way similar to what was called “Quick launch” in Windows XP. You can then delete the shortcut that you have made on the desktop, if you don’t want it there. If the 32 bit IE shortcut is already pinned to the taskbar and you do not want it there, right click its icon and select “Unpin from taskbar”. (Maybe do this first, actually, or it might get confusing as to which taskbar icon is which.)
I do not know why Microsoft supplies both 32 and 64 bit versions of IE on their 64 bit Windows 7 systems. My guess is that some older web sites (or other older programs that use IE) might not be compatible with the 64 bit version, but I doubt if this is a common problem. Also, maybe there will eventually be some newer sites or programs that only work with the 64 bit version. Having both is a bit confusing, because, in use, the two versions look almost identical, and it is hard to know which you are using unless you look at “About Internet Explorer” on the Help menu (and they hide the menus by default, just to make it harder!)
I think you are out of date here. There is certainly now a version of Flash that works with the 64 bit IE. Although you may have to download and install it separately from the 32 bit version. When I use IE (although this is not often, I mostly use Firefox), I use the 64 bit version, and it has never given me any problems. I don’t have to put any special effort into it, unless you count initially downloading the 64 bit version of Flash.
At the time Windows 7 shipped, there was not. So they didn’t have any choice but ship a 32-bit version of IE.
Believe me, everybody would be better off if Adobe had gotten their asses in gear and fixed Flash ages ago (it’s not like 64-bit is new; XP had a 64-bit version!) It’s nice that they have it now, only 7 years too late.
Yeah, but it was crap, plagued with incompatibility problems. There were few drivers for it. In fact, Microsoft never even got around to including all the XP service updates for it–there are programs that will run on Windows XP SP2 that will not run on Windows XP 64bit.
The question is why their code was so convoluted that they couldn’t have at least had it out by Windows 7, seeing as Windows Vista 64-bit was popular and mostly stable. Then again, Firefox still hasn’t fixed its code, either.