How to find out whether a 64- or 32-bit system is installed on a computer

No doubt, every user of a personal computer or laptop should understand very well how to find out whether a 64- or 32-bit system is installed. This is an important skill, and it should not be ignored.

Actually, if you do not know how to determine the number of "Windows", you can not remember the convenience of work, because at best the potential of this operating system will be used only partially, which indirectly means the loss of funds and time.

Prehistory

Many owners of computers "with experience" still remember those times when all the central processors were microchips with 32-bit addressing of commands. It should be noted that, in fact, the processing cores could safely operate even with 128 bit data, but the internal structure imposed a number of limitations. That's why the processor companies (AMD and Intel) decided to introduce 64-bit solutions by means of a minor revision of the chips logic. Famous Athlon 64x2 in terms of architecture and performance were so successful that gradually 64-bit technology was in every second home computer. We had to deal with small - adapted applications. So there was a version of the operating system, designed to work with 32- and 64-bit processors. Soon the market began to offer and corresponding third-party programs. It was from this moment on for the users that the important question became: "How do you know whether a 64- or 32-bit system is installed on a computer?".

System and applications

It would seem that everything is obvious - the 64-bit OS operates on a 64-bit processor, and 32-bit on the corresponding one. In practice, it is often used to run 32-bit programs on a 64-bit processor, so, alas, the above "obvious" is not. As a result, many users began to have a natural question: how to know whether a 64- or 32-bit system is installed on a computer? Especially it was difficult for beginners, who recently bought a computer with a preinstalled operating system.

Understand how to find out whether a 64-bit or 32-bit system is necessary to correctly select the applications. So, with the appropriate operating system and processor, it is more preferable to use 64-bit programs - they use RAM optimally, and also work faster.

The methods for determining

There are several ways to find out which system is installed. Users who have Windows versions from the infamous Vista to the modern "Eight", just click the mouse a couple of times: Start - Computer - right click menu - Properties. In the appeared window there is a line "System type", where the digit is specified.

The next option is based on the information module from the DirectX library package. It is necessary to press a combination of buttons Win + R and type dxdiag (do not forget to "execute", Enter). In the "Operating system" line, the bit depth is indicated.

And, of course, you can not ignore third-party applications. For example, after downloading a test version of AIDA64 and running the program, it should select the "Operating system" section, then the tab with the same name, and read about the bit depth in the line "OS kernel type".