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.
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Oh, Mr. Watts, the best Peer Reviewed science which I cant quote due to commercial agreements concludes spending money on developing a new version of software always leads to a better product. As a software developer, I am a disinterested expert, and I fully endorse this view. In fact you should just give me money, and I can confidently assure you you will soon feel better about your current problems.
Anthony,
“Promises made by Microsoft of 64 bit compatibility are blatantly false.” I would have expected documentation of such promises from you before posting this.
Microsoft says in their 32-bit and 64-bit Windows: Frequently asked questions, “Most programs designed for a computer running a 32-bit version of Windows will work on a computer running 64-bit versions of Windows.”
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/32-bit-64-bit-faq.aspx
Most. Most is not all.
I’m sure you know and given a little time to think about it you would agree with Donald Knuth that “Software is hard.” Moving a complex program from one operating system to another or one version to another is almost always going to uncover incompatibilities that bring operation to a screeching halt. It only takes one.
Microsoft works with software vendors, encouraging them to test their products against new OS versions. It is my experience that Microsoft makes no claims about specific (and certainly not about “all”) third party software unless certain tests have been performed, documented and passed.
If it had been me, I would have asked the software vendor if they had tested their product against the new operating system and what the results of that test had been. You’ve been around software long enough that uncovering such an incompatibility shouldn’t be a surprise. You’ve also been around long enough to accuse a company of wrongdoing only with documentation.
REPLY: You misunderstand, I didn’t have a choice. My old laptop running XP failed, I had to buy a new one and the ONLY choice was Win7 64. Just try to find a laptop with 32 bit Win7 on it. I already have several systems running the same multimedia software on Win7 32 and I’m happy with it and the performance. My issue is being “stuck” at 64 with no obvious downgrade options from 64 to 32 by either the Laptop manufacturer (HP) or the OS provider, Microsoft. Being trapped is no fun.
Readers have provided a solution I didn’t know about, and that’s that my COA key will apparently work for an install off a Win7 32 bit OS. I’m going to try that and report again – Anthony
Anthony I face the identical problem and having suffered with Vista for three years I was not willing to go through that all over again. Six weeks after failing to get several programs that talk to scientific instruments to work, and confirming that the companies involved (TSI, Testo, Agilent) have no intention of producing W7 let alone 64 bit versions anytime soon, I was forced to format and install a 32 bit W7 and reinstall all the dozens of programs I need. I used the Tech deal from M$ to get a valid licence – after exhausting the patience of every MS support person willing to listen to my tirades about trying to downgrade without buying a second OS.
It was an OEM Dell installation and MS used that to evade any responsibilty. “The change has to come from Dell” whose smerfs refuse to talk about it referring all enquiries to MS. MS stonewalls saying they didn’t sell it to me.
I empathise with those struggling to learn Office 2007 after having become proficient at all the previous versions, and even more with those who like me, found out that Office 2010 changed things again! The C in MS stands for ‘counter-intuitive’ and always did. Oh, for a new version of NW-DOS 7…..
Are you trying to run NASA GISS GCM ModelE on your computer? Your laptop might be too powerful for that and the simulation will run at an accelerated speed, causing the Earth to turn into Venus in 3 seconds instead of the usual 3 minutes. Try downgrading to a Z80 running CP/M for best results. Also try downgrading to a monochrome monitor because it makes the non-existence of clouds an aerosols seem more palatable.
Anthony,
The problem is obviously with the niche software. I find it odd that you can’t get it to run but it’s possible it is direct addressing memory. I had to upgrade MS Outlook because the old one would not run!! I recently upgraded all five of our machines to W7-64 – took me two days to get them all running perfectly with all data restored from server backup. It went super smooth.
My wife also runs a niche app – a $7K court reporting software thing and we had to bite the bullet and do that upgrade too. IMO the 64-bit machines are just too good to use anything else.
That said you can call HP and have them send you the W7 DVD, If they don’t or can’t, which I doubt very much, you can buy a W7 Home Premium Upgrade for around $100, yes, the Upgrade. That has both versions in it. From there look up the instructions on the net for creating a double boot machine. Boot in 32-bit to use your niche software.
Or, if you have the old Windows OS that ran in your old machine create a double boot system with it – problem solved.
I could also hook up to your machine remotely through a topnotch professional free app called Teamviewer and with you on the phone can give you some direct help. Look up Teamviewer on the net and shoot me an email if you’re interested.
Best,
Jose
I’m sticking with Windows XP til they pry it from my cold dead hard drive.
Sounds like you are screwed. I am a senior citizen computer science student at a local tech college, and I got Win7-32 and Win7-64 for free from Micro$oft. This is obviously not a solution for you.
I am looking forward to reading about your solution, especially if it involves no money spent.
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Windows-7-Ultimate-Edition-32-Bit-64-Bit-/130489330242?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e61c52a42
Anthony I sympathise with your problems getting your software to work, but blaming MS and Win 7 x64 is a bit rich given that you have done such great work on surface stations.org. A few others on here have offer some great help so I won’t stick my ore in on what to do..
But as someone who looks after a global array of hundreds of servers I can only say that windows 7 x64 and Server 3008R2 (which only comes in a 64 bit flavour) are the best things out of Redmond ever. However a lot of software vendors have played on misplaced public sentiment, mostly rife amongst the technically aware (who should know better) and get away with blaming MS rather than doing their jobs properly and writing decent drivers.
I also would say that the resellers often don’t do a very good job, and are mostly incapable of helping customers such as you. Would you buy a car without a test drive? And similarly I don’t deploy a server into production until we do development, UAT and regression testing. In your case you should be able to test your software on a new Win 7 distribution before you buy. The villain here is your application vendor, and they are not alone.
REPLY: I build servers with Server 2003/2008 and have no issues. My issue here is that Win7 64 advertises broad compatibility with 32 bit programs, and didn’t deliver, options like Virtual Machine don’t work, and MS doesn’t provide an easy way to downgrade to 32 bits. I could easily solve the problem with my Technet subscription, but that’s another MS horror story. I’ve spent 3 months trying to get it renewed, finally giving up.
MS earns some wrath, sorry if you don’t like that -A
Anthony,
You can use the product key you have to install the 32-bit version of windows.
See Windows 7 Fourms here
The ISO files (for either Home Premium that came installed on you machine or the Professional you upgraded to) can be found here. I took the liberty of calling HP and confirmed that if you change to the same version (ie Home Premium 64bit –> Home premuim 32bit) the OEM product key will work.
The ISO’s can be found here.
I hope this helps you out.
You may contact me at the email address provided on the comment form if you have any questions.
Robb
Did an HP OEM install disc come with the laptop? Or does HP offer a back-up system on the hard drive installalation? My Acer laptop came with no OEM disc but rather a copy on the hard drive. I simply burned a dvd-r to make my own copy of a windows factory default installation. Perhaps your system has a 32-bit version on the hard drive somewhere.
REPLY: nope, only an image restore
Seems the second I provided wasn’t tagged properly.
try this
or copy this link http://www.w7forums.com/windows-7-iso-official-direct-download-links-t2910.html
Robb
REPLY: Thanks!
I kind of have to dissagree with you on this one, I have recently written 35,000 lines of code for heavy graphics and numerical computation used for a Seismic Imaging application on WIN 7 64 Bit, and I can attest that it’s the best OS that I have ever used in my 23 years of experience, which includes VAX,CRAY,IBM,SUN OS,SOLARIS,LINUX and Previous Versions of Windows. But I just spent two days decrapafying an HP Envy Laptop and upgrading to 64 Bit and it sucked, but It works fine now.
I Love Windows 7 and C# and can’t wait for Windows 8 😉
Robb is spot on – you should be able to install the 32bit version with your OEM key.
Mind you I would direct my anger at your ISV- not Microsoft – 64 bit has been around for a very long time now, and for intensive workloads it is much more capable. I have been using 64bit OS on servers and laptops for years now and I would hate to go back to a 32 bit OS.
As an IT Pro, I can’t see why in a pinch, VirtualBox + Win7 32 would not work for you.
There are some technical reasons to keep w7-64: You can run with more than 4 gigs of RAM. Each Win32 process can only access 2GB of ram, but it does so in its own address space. Meaning, that if you have 4 32bit apps each taking 2GB, and your system has 8GB, then you’ll be just fine (not including what your W7 OS needs) Consider then W7-32. You can only have 2 2GB apps open. So being able to access more memory is a huge feature of win64.
Though I understand your frustration, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot if you go with 32 bit windows. (I am assuming you have more than 4G, or the capability to at least upgrade to over 4GB)
I would be very interested in hearing more about your problematic software package: what it is, and what errors it si giving you. Please email me privately and I’ll see what I can do for you.
Stop the craziness!
I was perfectly happy with the Windows 95 operating system but Bill Gates forced me to buy new operating systems over and over again. Now I use Linux (Ubuntu distro), which eliminates the need to cope with the problems created by Microsoft’s shoddy products.
I also bought the Windows 7 64 bit OEM as an upgrade… I returned it to the place I bought it.
It took over an hour but finaly they took it back.
I made it clear I was not leaving without the 32 bit verson and I was not paying another cent….
I also made it clear they were welcome to call the cops…. thats if they thought the local press would think it newsworthy Microsoft customers would rather be arrested than continue using the 64 bit operating system…
I think the whole issue went awry a long time ago (in the late 1970s) when old copyright law was hijacked for machine readable binaries because of pressure from the just emerging software industry. It also looked like a convenient solution for the government in a Cold War environment to have the cake and eat it too, that is, to have works copyrighted while maintaining trade secrets (basically to prevent the Soviet military industry complex to catch up).
Remember, originally only human readable works could be protected under copyright (for a limited time) and only if they were published. Copyright was not considered property (certainly not in the current sense of Intellectual Property Rights), as it was not a permanent right, but a bargain between authors and the general public, giving exclusive rights to authors for a limited time to publish (and sell) copies of their work in exchange for the public’s right to use it (for a fee) and use it freely once the copyright expires and the work defaults back into public domain. Of course you can’t dismiss proper attribution even for works with expired copyright, but that only shows how far copyright is from being a genuine property right. You can re-publish works of William Shakespeare whenever you want with no permission whatsoever, but you can never claim to be their author.
To see that according to traditional ethics software piracy is forbidden not because some property is stolen, it is enough to realize there’s no passage like “Thou shalt not make unauthorized copies” in the Bible similar to Thou shalt not steal. It is based on an entirely different passage saying Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
But this latter obligation is clearly dependent on a previous bargain, that is, hiring your neighbor to do a job on a wage in the first place. Traditionally in the domain of intellectual works the framework for such a bargain is provided by copyright law, but, as any bargain, it is supposed to have two sides. If your neighbor fails to deliver the work he was hired for, you are of course entitled to withhold his wage all night until the morning and beyond.
As machine readable binaries expire (simply because old machinery is no longer available) long before the copyright itself would expire, under present law the general public is left empty-handed in the long run. Also, the very intellectual content of code, which is its core value, is inaccessible for the party in the bargain who gave authors temporary exclusive rights just to provide an incentive to deliver more intellectual value. That is, it’s no longer a fair business.
Copyright and trade secret is just not to be mixed, the same way patents exclude trade secrets. You have all rights to keep your achievements secret, but in that case you simply can’t expect the same level of legal protection you enjoy when your accomplishments are published.
Linux is not superior to proprietary operating systems in many respects because it is free (like “free beer”), but because its source code is available to all, that is, it’s free in the sense of the word used in the phrase “free speech”.
Basically there are two orthogonal dimensions along which software marketing could be evaluated, but under the current legal framework they are hopelessly entangled. One is the “free of charge” – “costs money” axis, the other is “freely available” – “secret” (source code). Currently one of the conceivable quarters “source code is published but it is protected by copyright and is available only for a fee” is almost empty. It is not a natural state of affairs, but it’s clearly due to faulty regulation.
As copyright enforcement improved a lot all over the world in the last few decades, it does not make sense anymore to keep up a system that mixes copyright and trade secret up in the most irksome way.
The solution is to provide strict copyright protection to source code if it is published while denying the same protection to executable binaries if their source is kept secret. That would give a strong incentive to build an extensive source code market. Even copyright would get more enforceable, because it is much easier to identify copyright violations at the source code level than in binaries (you can run spiders in large software source code repositories to look for culprits).
With such a legal shift the software industry itself would get much more efficient. Multiple reimplementation of the same piece of software could be avoided, laden with a host of innovative bugs each time of course. It would be also much easier to move old software to new platforms, because the job could be done by third party vendors for a small additional fee (basically by recompiling the source), provided the right to use the original source code is already purchased, of course. BTW, it would solve Anthony’s problem with his expensive piece of software in a whiff.
I do not think software developers would get jobless in such an environment, they would get simply more productive. Also, quality assurance is much easier if the source code is given as it is the case with debugging as well. There are so many tasks out there to be accomplished properly, that it would give plenty of work for generations of developers. However, as work gets more efficient, software would be cheaper. Admittedly this system would not lend itself to monopolistic marketing practices so readily as the current system does, but it’s rather a bonus, not a disadvantage.
For those who are not familiar with the intricacies of the software market but are regulars to WUWT, current situation is like scientific papers getting published without data and software they rely on, so their claims are utterly unverifiable (unfortunately a regular practice in mainstream climate science).
Naturally other peculiarities of current copyright law are also to be revised as for example the rule it expires 70 years after the author’s death. As for software the person of author is seldom identified and is often unidentifiable as there’re multiple authors, what is more, job contracts usually have a clause that transfers copyright to the corporation hiring programmers, it simply does not make sense for software. What is more, even if 70 years would make sense, this time is far too long in a rapidly developing environment like the software industry.
Anyway, I know these philosophical musings do not help Anthony a bit in his current trouble, but it is often appropriate to have a wider look on an apparently weird situation, otherwise we are stuck with Santayana‘s statement “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. And repeat it we do, with each and every painful software installation procedure.
Indeed, just do yourself a favor and switch to Linux, out of curiosity i did 10 years ago & never looked back. & it’s come a long long way since then, ie) ‘better-than’ any MS offerings, period.
Anthony I’m not trying to defend MS, far from it, they have many marketing issues, and I don’t care what people think of them, but the fact remains that software vendors have been given a soft ride, and as a result many of them have not done their bit and customers such as yourself end up either having to pay again for the application software, that works perfectly well or downgrade your operating system to get less that optimal performance from your new super duper hardware. If my experience is anything to go by there is every chance that your software may not work on the 32 bit version of win 7. This is a well discussed subject amongst computer professionals, and I’m just offering a point of view that could help you understand the issue.
Think about this you have a library of music and your DVD player finally fails. But all you can pick up is some new-fangled blue-ray player and despite compatibility promises your music won’t play. You ask the music companies for new media and will even pay a small fee but you find you either have to buy an old player, or pay full price for music you already own. You can substitute movies and see the same situation. Who’s fault is it?
In your case you are not using some piece of consumer software but software where your expectation is for the price you get professional support. It is not as if they have not had any time, or lack of support from MS to fix their drivers. It’s that they chose not to and to penalise their customers. Just a point of view from a professional
Quote JERoME
“32 bits are plenty. 16 were plenty, really. RISC processors (like Apple used to use) worked fine and were faster. The maxing of bits is pure hype to sell more hardware.”
Awesome buddy. Maybe you only enjoy minesweeper and hearts, but for the rest of us that use our PC’s for more than word 2.0 I will take my 32/64 bit processors.
To Anthony,
At least your software works on Windows 7 32bit. Count yourself lucky. As a building controls engineer the software I use from Johnson Controls laughs at Windows 7 AND Vista. It will only run Win XP and the latest rev was released in October 2010! It does work in Virtual XP thank god.
Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity was said to be:
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I think this refers to buying a new PC.
Alas, we live in a different parallel universe from that where all future versions of Microsoft software are 100% compatible with all past and future versions. Where a 5 page document is always 10k in size and loads in a millisecond, but each new version is 100% better than the last, and costs half as much – at the same time as efficiently utilizing all the hardware features on new or old machines.
That is the same universe where climate scientists first publish their raw data, and then have amiable discussions with everyone, expert or layman, to decide what is really happening, and all climate predictions amount to “…pretty much the same as the past few centuries…, with occasional excursions into more variable states.”
It’s a nice place, without the insanity, etc., but it’s – well – a bit boring.
It is worth asking, how significantly different is the coding to require that it’s so separate one can’t buy one license that is applied if it’s 32 or 64, so if there is a problem it’s a simple switch out.
This won’t solve the running problem but will at least do away with having to buy a whole new package due to the lack of imagination, consideration, and talent of the engineers and programmers to provide a means to at least test beforehand, if it is not reversible. Then we could uninstall, return, exchange for right product.
Anthony, you say:
REPLY: You misunderstand, I didn’t have a choice. My old laptop running XP failed, I had to buy a new one and the ONLY choice was Win7 64. Just try to find a laptop with 32 bit Win7 on it.
I just surfed on over to the Dell website, selected the first laptop I saw (“Ships Fast Vostro 3500”). The standard operating system, included in the price is … Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 32-bit, English.
Prefer HP? It took me two minutes to find the HP EliteBook 230P. Operating system … Windows 7 Professional 32 bit.
Then there’s the HP Probook 6550b. Operating system … Windows 7 Professional 32 bit.
REPLY: Surfing for options is great, but doesn’t put it in hand the same day when you head out for travel – A
peter geany says: February 22, 2011 at 7:21 am
“Anthony I’m not trying to defend MS, far from it, … and customers such as yourself end up either having to pay again for the application software, ”
Peter, you really don’t get it do you! The only reason Micro$oft keep doling out these stupid “new” version of windows to force you to “pay again for the (same) application software”.
This is what is called in business: “milking a cash cow”. The public just sit their munching grass, and whenever micro$oft want a bit more cash they just invent a reason to bring out a new version of their operating software and all the cash cow just delivers the cash!
Micro$oft is pure and simply a marketing gimmick it is to computing what Mann is to climate science – it provides nothing of any benefit to humanity and just spins the rest!