My computer is not using all installed memory...

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

juanantoniod said:

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

... You are being serious are you not?

No worries mate. The reason 32bit Windows is still around is mostly down to drivers and old applications - there are even today still folks that have apps and drivers that just don't work in a 64bit environment. It is worth noting, however, that OEMs like Lenovo and Dell have been shipping Windows 7 x64 as the default for quite some time now (and Toshiba has been on my sh*t list as far as hardware and software goes for a long time, so I have no idea what they've done since the Vista days). As to Mac, the reason they tend to have fewer problems like this is down to the app and developer ecosystem - it's a much more closed garden, so to speak, and they have far more control (meaning 100%, basically) over the drivers and hardware that works with their OS. Also, once they made the switch from PPC to x86/Intel, they pretty much got rid of backwards compatibility with older PPC apps (these had to run in an emulation layer, or be rewritten for x86 Mac OS X ultimately). The grass is greener, for sure, but you lose a lot of control over your PC environs. The choice is, of course, ultimately yours - again, you should use what works best for you. If you have apps that you can take with you and either repurchase, completely replace, or re-download for Mac OS X, then you should seriously consider it. Otherwise, sticking with Windows means doing your research and making wise decisions (just as you would with any other aspect of your life). On one hand, your research in talking to Toshiba was good, but asking them how much RAM your system could address (4GB, which is technically correct) versus how much the OS could actually *use* once the hardware and BIOS reserves memory is something else that Toshiba was bound to give you a technically correct, but completely unusable answer on (again, don't get me started on Toshiba). If you need help doing real research, let us know here .

Looks like someone needs to take windows all versions 101

Not trying to be funny man but you need to really read about what you are useing and if some salesperson told you this informantion then we can't really blame you for being misinformed

Like i was saying you should go purchase windows for dummies even though i never used it ,It's a direct and plain english type of deal with out all the jargen smargen that you won't understand then you will have a idea of what my fellow members are explaining to you

logicearth said:

juanantoniod said:

Oh and the iPhone's 32GB is RAM, not 'hard disk'. I mean, how would they fit a disk into that little phone?

... You are being serious are you not?

I was being half serious or mostly serious, kind of tongue in cheek. Because it is true: How would one fit a hard disk in that small of a space (the iPhone)? AND, the memory in iPhone is RAM (Random Access Memory) or working memory, not a hard drive. Perhaps a hybrid term might be more accurrate: solid state memory?

cluberti said:

No worries mate. The reason 32bit Windows is still around is mostly down to drivers and old applications - there are even today still folks that have apps and drivers that just don't work in a 64bit environment. It is worth noting, however, that OEMs like Lenovo and Dell have been shipping Windows 7 x64 as the default for quite some time now (and Toshiba has been on my sh*t list as far as hardware and software goes for a long time, so I have no idea what they've done since the Vista days). As to Mac, the reason they tend to have fewer problems like this is down to the app and developer ecosystem - it's a much more closed garden, so to speak, and they have far more control (meaning 100%, basically) over the drivers and hardware that works with their OS. Also, once they made the switch from PPC to x86/Intel, they pretty much got rid of backwards compatibility with older PPC apps (these had to run in an emulation layer, or be rewritten for x86 Mac OS X ultimately). The grass is greener, for sure, but you lose a lot of control over your PC environs. The choice is, of course, ultimately yours - again, you should use what works best for you. If you have apps that you can take with you and either repurchase, completely replace, or re-download for Mac OS X, then you should seriously consider it. Otherwise, sticking with Windows means doing your research and making wise decisions (just as you would with any other aspect of your life). On one hand, your research in talking to Toshiba was good, but asking them how much RAM your system could address (4GB, which is technically correct) versus how much the OS could actually *use* once the hardware and BIOS reserves memory is something else that Toshiba was bound to give you a technically correct, but completely unusable answer on (again, don't get me started on Toshiba). If you need help doing real research, let us know here .

Cluberti,

Thanks for the very explanative response. It used to be that people stuck with Microsoft Windows OS instead of Mac because of software incompatibility or unavailability issues on the Mac. But now that everything is going toward a more cloud based 'os', the line between Macs and Microsoft Windows PCs is getting thinner and thinner. Everything Adobe will run on Mac, Office is available for Mac, although I wonder why anyone would want to put something from Microsoft on such a beautiful machine. iTunes, the other major player in the software applications, is of course Mac-able. So, yeah, I cannot see why anyone would want to use a Microsoft Windows based PC.

I am curious, however, why Toshiba is on your s**t list. I have had nothing but good with my last 2 Satellites and 1 Portege, the original Tablet PC -- boy did that bomb! He he he.

I just love the idea of a PC that works the way iPhone works. When I first got the iPhone, every time I went to do something it was just like they thought of it first. Nothing needed to be reconfigured, downloaded or fixed to get it to work. Now that I have had the phone for a while, I can notice a few downfalls: 1-is that when you turn the phone horizontal on the home screens, the icons do not turn with it, 2-is the built in correction dictionary for typing sux; I wish they would have used the same keyboarding system that the PS3 uses, and last, 3-well i guess there really is nothing else to fix, except that i wish the entire phone was controllable by voice, but that is a whole other topic.

Thanks again for the follow through on this thread!

P.S. Until I can get a Mac, should I go back and reinstall Windows and Office in the 64 Bit versions, and start using that for increased performance? Or am I going to have compatibility issues with 64 bit Windows, because my mom's desktop PC has Microsoft Windows 64 bit, and when I was visiting her a few months ago, one of the Adobe apps, like flash or something, was not working on the 64 bit environment because it had not been built yet. Is this a common occurrence where 64 bit apps come second to 32 bit?

Happy Holidays!

marsmimar said:

To speed up shutdown times, try this:

Shut Down -Speed Up

For information about why you might be getting updates installed even though you want to be notified beforehand, see this:

Stop Automatic Updates

I appreciate you looking these up for me, but shouldn't the computer figure out the fastest way and just shut down when you tell it? (One of the whole reasons I despised Mac from the get-go was because you just couldn't open the drive door and take out your floppy, like you could on the DOS PCs of that day, and that you had to tell the Mac to shut down, you couldn't just turn it off like a PC. Now, with MS Windows, we basically have the same issues, so there is no reason to despise Mac any more than MS Windows)

Also, what gave Microsoft the 'right' to just install its updates even when you tell it not to? Is this not evil? Perhaps I'm too forward in my thinking, but after working with computers for 32 years, I would have thought that these 'kinks' would have already been worked out.

Solarstarshines said:

Looks like someone needs to take windows all versions 101

Not trying to be funny man but you need to really read about what you are useing and if some salesperson told you this informantion then we can't really blame you for being misinformed

Like i was saying you should go purchase windows for dummies even though i never used it ,It's a direct and plain english type of deal with out all the jargen smargen that you won't understand then you will have a idea of what my fellow members are explaining to you

I have no problems understanding how Windows works (or fails to). Nor do I not know what fellow members are talking about. I fully get it. I just think that, by now (I have been working with computers for 32 years.), these things should function a bit better. It is kind of like a car. Now they make cars that need *no* maintenance for the first 100,000 miles. Shouldn't computers have advanced at leas that much?