UPDATE: 2/22 I’ve solved the problem, I’ll have a complete report in a day or two to help others that might be up against what I was. I’ll offer a complete “how to”. – Anthony
This is just a short note to point out that if you have an opportunity to buy a new PC or laptop, demand Windows 32 bit OS.
Promises made by Microsoft of 32 bit application compatibility are blatantly false (at least in my case). After two days of pulling my hair out with Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium, then buying the “anytime upgrade” to “professional” which still didn’t solve the problem. My problem: a very expensive broadcast multimedia program that demands 32 bit operation. Yes I’ve tried XP mode and Virtual PC, still fail. I’m faced now with:
1. Returning my new HP laptop and telling them to shove it into the refurb bin.
2. Buying the full retail version of Windows 7 32 professional, making my laptop overpriced.
3. Driving to Redmond and giving Ballmer a swift kick in the butt for being dumber than Steve Jobs at making customers stranded with no place to go.
There’s no downgrade path to 32 bit from 64 bit, no optional install, no recovery, only more money down the toilet for a retail license I already own, which is 64 not 32. Or return the whole unit as far as I can tell. Pissed off I am.
Ideas welcome. Please, no, don’t tell me to buy a Mac or run Linux, as they are not solutions to this particular problem.
REPLY: Update, WUWT readers come through with a solution, providing a way to get a CD ISO of the 32 bit OS, and advising that the COA key for 64 bit will also work for 32 bit, something I didn’t know. Thanks!
The irony: I could have solved this issue with the Technet volume license subscription that I used to have, but that’s another licensing horror story where I fell into a trap I couldn’t recover from. The subscription lapsed a few days, I went to renew it, but found there’s no option for renewal on my login, and I’ve spent 3 months in runaround with MS volume licensing, who sold me a $900 solution that still didn’t work, getting a refund, then being told I had to buy the renewal through external distributors. When I contact them, they don’t know what I’m talking about and a vicious cycle ensues. I finally gave up.
My issues with MS are ones of over complexity in solving what should be simple licensing problems.
Thanks to WUWT readers for their solution suggestions.
I’ll post a new update when I have the results of this new attempt.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If the Software uses a 32bit driver your only choice is to install Win 7 32-bit.
You should contact HP support and ask for a 32bit install medium. Microsoft didnt bother if you use 32 or 64 bit with your OEM license, so if HP gives you the install medium everything is fine.
After you installed the 32bit version you can still use your anytime upgrade key to upgrade to professional!
REPLY: That’s the plan I’m pursuing, thanks. Still a lot of time and work, but the only path forward. It’s really too bad that there’s not an online solution to this. – A
I write software. The programs work perfectly on windows XP. They won’t work on Vista 64. Since I don’t have a Vista machine, I haven’t tried loading my compiler on Vista. However, from what I already know, even the compiler won’t work with Vista 64. Apparently, things are the same with Windows 7.
There are 3 problems that Microsoft did that guarantee that older software will not work.
1 There is no program to display the old help file format
2 The “C:\Program Files” directory is now named “C:\Program Files (x86)” which causes many programs to crash
3 Screen elements (like buttons) are rendered outside the application window boundary, and, therefore, there is no way to see or click them. The forums suggest that this is because the default system font is a different size, but I have not been able to verify that.
Compatibility mode will not fix any of these problems. The only solution I know is to discard all the programs I have ever written and to rewrite them all in the latest Microsoft .Net compiler. Of course, that means that the programs will no longer be backward compatible.
Become a Pirate.
When you take back your HP computer for reloading with XP Professional 32-bit, confidently demand a refund, staring wildly at them with your one good eye, picking your teeth with your cutlass.
Always take adequate backups. Bring your whole Crew of Cutthroats with you.
Respond to anything with “Aaaarrh, Mateys”, using a handy belaying pin for frequent emphasis.
Wear your Parrot with Pride.
I think my post got deleted. I certainly hope it wasn’t because I took a critical position on your rant against Microsoft. If so, I’m truly disappointed.
I’m fine with my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I would much prefer it than 32-bit because 32-bit only uses about 3 or 4 GB of RAM. I have 6GB I want to use. The 64-bit uses all of it.
I have no idea why the program wont work on the 64-bit. All programs should.
GO Oracle’s VirtualBox, Anthony! Latest version of VB (4.0.4r70112) has excellent network connetion protocols, supports USB 2, etc. If you have about 3Gig of RAM, assign 1Gig the VB machine.
My Intel Core 2 quad, 2.66 GHz, 3 G ram Compaq desktop started life as a Vista Home Premium OEM. I purchased Win7 Home Premium for about $200 (Australian) and volutarily chose the 64-bit option. When my old Lexmark printer-scanner-fax program had problems, the BEST SOLUTION I found was setting up a VirtualBox machine running my old 32-bit XP Home operating system.
Since you have a Technet account, you could download the Windows 7 32bit ISO and generate a genuine product key for activation but after the 90-day deactivation of Windows 7 you couldn’t re-activate it even though the key is legit. What you want to do is somehow convert your existing Windows 7 64-bit to 32-bit but unfortunately that is just not possible from the operating system itself. However there is a working technique of downgrading from 64bit of Windows 7 to 32-bit is pretty straight forward but the process can be a little long.
First, you will need to either download the exact same edition of Windows 7 ISO or simply remove the ei.cfg to create a universal edition selector of Windows 7 installation disc. Then backup the existing Windows 7 license to a USB flash drive. Reinstall Windows 7 32-bit and restore the OEM license. I won’t be showing you on where to download Windows 7 ISO images but I am sure you can get them from torrents, Rapidshare and even on Digital River servers.
Next use ABR (Activation Backup and Restore) which is able to backup and restore the activation from Windows Vista and there is a beta version which works with Windows 7. I have personally tested it and it works like a charm. The important rule is to make sure you restore the Windows 7 OEM activated license on the same edition of Windows 7. For example, if your Dell desktop comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, you can only restore it back on Windows 7 Home Premium. If you try to restore a Home Premium license on a Windows 7 Ultimate operating system, the Status and Product ID will show “Not Available” in System. At desktop bottom right corner will also show the message “This copy of Windows is not genuine”.
Here is the exact steps when using ABR to backup and restore Windows 7 OEM license:
1.) Download ABR Beta from here http://directedge.us/files/abr/ABRbeta.exe
2.) Run ABRbeta.exe and it will extract the files to a new ABR folder.
3.) Run activation_backup.exe from the ABR folder and it will create two new files backup-cert.xrm-ms and backup-key.txt in the ABR folder. Hit Enter to close ABR.
4.) Backup the ABR folder by copying it to a USB flash drive.
5.) Reinstall a clean version of Windows 7. During installation, leave the product key blank when asked to enter product key and uncheck the option where it will auto activate when your computer is online.
6.) When Windows 7 has finished installing, plug in USB flash drive and run activation_restore.exe from the ABR folder.
7.) Simultaneously press WIN+Pause/Break key to launch the System window. Scroll down and you should see “Windows is activated” with an OEM product ID.
Windows 7 is activated
There is nothing illegal about using ABR if you use it to backup and restore the Windows 7 license on your computer. However if you use it to install and activate on other/multiple computers, then you can get into trouble with Microsoft. Remember, there are two conditions to get ABR working:
1.) It can only backup from factory activated Windows 7. It won’t work on phone or online activated Windows 7.
2.) It can only restore the license on the same Windows 7 edition. You can switch between 32-bit and 64-bit, but not from Home Premium to Ultimate.
Download ABR v1.7 Beta 1: http://directedge.us/files/abr/ABRbeta.exe
Visit ABR Official Website: http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore
…
P.S. To activate Windows 7 free use Windows 7 Loader 5 release. Guaranteed to work, and its perfectly legal.
Anthony,
I run Windows 7 Premium 64 bit at home with no complaints. I don’t do anything exotic, however. I do a lot of powerpoint and some video editing without problems.
At the weather office we have a network of 5 windows XP pro 32 bit machines. They run well but need frequent reboots with the sophisticated programs we use. I am now to the point where I overload the Ram unless I am careful. We are talking about upgrading to Windows 7 64 and Weather Central says all of their programs will run perfectly on it. We are right on the edge, RAM wise, because we are running everything in HD.
John
Anyone still using XP would be well advised to transfer it to running in a VM now rather than waiting till the machine it is on expires. Just having a disk image is not quite enough. VirtualBox seems to work well (I use it for XP and 32 bit linux so I can run itunes and the amazonmp3 downloader respectively).
> 1. Returning my new HP laptop and telling them to shove it into the refurb bin.
The licence you get with your laptop gives you the option to downgrade to 32bit. You should be able to call HP and complain and demand a 32bit version of Doze7 Home Premium. You’ll only be able to use 3gigs of RAM, but given your scenario above you give very little options other than this.
But the safest option is to get a demo version of doze7 32bit and install it, it’ll nag you for 14 days for a licence but atleast then you can find out if its a doze problem or not.
> 2. Buying the full retail version of Windows 7 32 professional, making my laptop overpriced.
The “Professional” version of doze is the minimum version you can purchase that will join a network domain, if you’re not using domains then then save money and stick with “Home Premium”.
> 3. Driving to Redmond and giving Ballmer a swift kick in the butt for being dumber
> than Steve Jobs at making customers stranded with no place to go.
People have tried, it doesnt work. Ballmer doesnt see anyone whos not atleast a billionaire or have to pay him a fee.
Migration from 64 to 32 bit: yeah, micro$ understands that this is a problem but decided it was too hard to have this option. They were running behind schedule and had to drop a bunch of features.
But it all depends on how often you use this software. If its not often then install it on another laptop running a favourable 32bit flavour of doze and make it your dedicated “media broadcasting” laptop or a desktop. If all you’re doing is finishing off the job, then maybe this could be the easiest option? How often do you use the software?
I know you have indicated you can’t use a Mac for your program. But as an aside, the main reason I use a Mac is that they are a piece of cake to upgrade from machine to machine. All of your programs and settings, pretty much right where you left off. I think it’s inexcusable that Microsoft hasn’t developed something much better than Windows Easy Transfer. And I manage backend MS servers, so I appreciate their success with AD and Exchange. But the registry is a disaster and I expect a lot more from a software company that large.
If you see Steve, give him another kick for all of those hours of my life I’ll never get back.
Woohoo I can finally be helpful round here, I’m the IT guy at work that fixes everyones computers for 20 quid, if you could just get me a flight over i’ll having it working in five minutes.
Or I just got a 64 bit windows 7 install on the best machine i’ve ever owned:-
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m11x/pd?refid=alienware-m11x&cs=19&s=dhs&~ck=mn
I have done this many times and been, mostly, successful;
Take the drivers from your original, working, install and place them somewhere in the path (eg, c:\windows) not the system32 folder(s) where they could over-write OS critical files. Any program worth its salt will find them.
As to MS – they only care about .gov X 15000 seats/licences or the admin at HP HQ who has 20,000 users to tend to. Single users, even 5+ seat businesses can go swivel.
Heh,
your niche multimedia program dont runs on 64bit systems, unless you upgrade it for $5.000 ? I really had to laugh, that you are assuming this is a problem of your OS.
Your niche multimedia program may have some code like this:
if (os.information = “32bit”)
proceed();
else
{
pout(“ohnoes, buy the 64bit version first!”);
crash();
}
Get on the horn with ms techs — they got me a version of vista 32 to replace my oem version when i had problems with the oem version. The process was slower than i liked (via email instead of phone contact) but they turned out to be surprisingly helpfull.
> Cris says:
> February 21, 2011 at 7:46 pm
> Newegg sells the OEM version of Win 7 Home Premium 32 for $99.
1. Try VirtualBox, as nearly everyone suggests (I use it daily – WinXP 32 on Debian and Scientific Linux).
2. Use Cris option (above)
3. If your multimedia software’s unit cost to the price of your new investment in 32 bit Window environment is 10:1 or greater (or whatever base ratio you will think of is viable in your circumstances ) buy the damn 32 bit s/w and say yourself that your 64 bit investment was “slightly” overpriced (it happens nowadays to everybody – as I’m a Linux man I cannot say, alas – “welcome on board” then 😉 ).
Regards
Mac.
[ 🙂 ]
Just wait until you try Google Earth 6.0 on it, I had quicker response time on my Commodore 64. Google Earth 5.2 worked fine.
Anthony,
I have a new HP 625 laptop that runs Windows 7 Professional. I’ve been a long term user of XP Pro and all the previous versions of Windows (and DOS) back to Windows 1.0 so can fully sympathise with you plight. I’ve been developing software that runs under these different Windows/DOS OSes for over 20 years and I’m sure as other software developers wil testify its been a constant battle trying to keep up with Microsoft OS ‘upgrades’.
In my case I decided to ‘bite the bullet’ about 4 months ago, as I felt it was about time to finally accept the fact that Windows XP Professional wasn’t eventually no longer to be support by PC hardware manufacturers and so I had to at least make an effort to see what the difficulties woudl be in migating all my software development platforms (which are predominent but not exclusively Microosoft). In particular I neded/wanted to find out if any (hopefully all) the 32-bit software applications I’ve developed (and continue to maintain and support for various clients) would stiil be capable of being further developed/maintained/supported in Windows 7.
Consequently I did quite a bit of research on Windows 7 before I decided to purchase my new laptop. I had heard about XP Mode (and realised that it was in effect a ‘cloaked’ version of Virtual PC). After much researching I realised very quickly that the main decision I needed to make was whether or not to go for 64bit or 32bit Windows 7. If I went for 64bit I could take advantage of its support for > 4Gb memory but I would be taking an extra risk of then relying upon XP Mode to run any 32bit applications I still need to maintain and further develop. I use a significant number of 32bit COM 3rd party custom controls from companies like ComponentOne soem of which are not available in 64bit, so I finally decided that opting for the 32bit version of Windows 7 Professional was the less riskier option.
I’m glad to report that I made the right decision. All the software development integrated development environments (IDEs) (and 3rd party custom controls) I use work either natively in 32bit Windows 7 Pro and/or within Windows XP Mode.
Fortunately the type of applications I develope and support are not particularly hardware (e.g. graphics) intensive but they are computational intensive. What I have found is that if I run teh same computational intensive application in full XP mode, its runs at about 25% of the speed it runs under native 32bit Windows 7 Pro. Even if you can overcome the ‘driver’ issues with your currently non working in 64bit application, I suspect you may still have issues getting to to run responsively if you are relying upon it working in XP mode within 32 bit Windows 7 Professional.
I haven’t tried to install Windows XP Professional as a duel boot option on a separate partition on my new laptop (as I haven’t needed to as yet) but assuming XP Pro will run on your new laptop (i.e. HP provides all the 32bit drivers for your new laptop’s on-board graphics/sound card/network card etc) then I’d suggest setting up your new laptop as a dual boot mode Windows 7/Windows XP laptop. That way hopefully you get your application to work (in full XP Pro) and you’ll have time to find a workaround to eventually get it to work in 32bit Windows 7 Pro. DO NOT under any circumstances pay $5000 to the supplier of this application.
Finally while on this topic I’d like to say that much of IT is like climate change. As with climate chnage there’s lots of hype and false/unstantiated claims of certainty in the IT business. As in climate change the whole field of IT is full of people who are happy to make unsubstantiated claims provided they can make a quick buck out of it.
From personally experience I’ve found that (as people like your good self, Steve M, Wills E etc already do) it’s best to ignore all these claims and instead try to check and verify things for yourself (apply the scientific method to IT if you like). As is the case in climate change, in the IT business, the reality is all too often different to the marketing hype. I’m sure we’d all admit that we’ve all fallen for the ‘hype’ (climate alarmism) at some time or another. Thankfully, at least as far as climate change is concerned, we have your excellent web site to innoculate against climate change hype (alarmism).
Keep up the good work Anthony and mods!
Really believing windoze will work is like assuming pippy will not profiteer or ‘funded’ scientist will be objective.. get linux n get over it.. luv your work btw..
I was stupid enough several years ago to buy XP-64. Boy, was that a huge blunder! I found even Word wasn’t compatible with it–soon I had .tmp files that were 50 meg, and then they wouldn’t go away and changes I thought I saved weren’t being saved.
I lost a whole man-year’s of work on that little mistake.
I’d never buy anything 64-bit from MS. They suck.
Windows 7 32 bit ed. can be downloaded via Rapidshare here:
http://worldsdown.net/rapidsharesoftwarelinks/436961-microsoft-windows-7-home-premium-sp1-x86-022011.html
You also could try “compatability mode”. Rightclick the application, choose properties. On the compatability tab you can configure options to run it as a previous version of Windows.
I feel your pain; my TValue program doesn’t work on 64 bit either; no solution.
Other issues; Can’t split wallpaper on separate screens or even have windows remember open window size and position on re-open without buying software from an outside vendor. XP and even Vista did these things, no problem, FOR FREE.
Less functionality, more price. Think microsoft has a profitable business plan?
I have a windows 7 64 bit laptop and I’m really pleased with Windows 7. It compatibility with older programs has been excellent. As others have explained, you can’t really expect 32 bit drivers written for bespoke hardware to run on a 64 bit OS.
My suggestion, without knowing if you use this hardware on the road, would be to pick up an old XP desktop to run your hardware device and it’s 32 bit software on. Then transfer the output files to your laptop. You can use the laptop for everything else and won’t have to go through the pain of a 32 bit downgrade. You can upgrade to the 64 bit software later when you choose.
Good luck.
If you got the no-disc OEM version that installs directly from a partition on your hard drive you still have a right to the installation disc, since you don’t pay for the software per se but for the license to use the software.
The OEM install disc should contain both the 32-bit and the 64-bit version per Microsoft’s information, however, apparently, some OEM’s has the right to be cheap so they distribute one version per install disc, but the serial number is to actually work for both versions.
So if you can’t get the seller to play service minded and hand over what you should have a right to, the only way is to get Microsoft to help, but they’ll probably just going to give you a discount on an upgrade if you’re lucky. It is quicker and it is better buying an original upgrade version, instead of OEM crap, since the original discs contain both 32-bit and 64-bit and you’re still able to choose to make a clean install. If you buy directly from Microsoft you can buy a downloadable version only (with the option of getting a backup copy sent to you by snail mail) which image you put on a USB stick or burn to a suitable disc.
But you need to go with Windows 7 pro if you want the built in XP emulator, which is what you need to have to run applications made for XP to run properly.