Upgrade OS from 32 to 64  

townsbg said:

Flashing the BIOS is updating it. I think that it is the general consensus that you don't want to do that and it definitely isn't necessary to change from 32 to 64-bit. Earlier I think that you are confusing bios drivers with chipset drivers. There is a difference.

Where did you hear that 32 bit versions aren't going to be patched for spetre and meltdown?

The owner of the laptop was concerned about the issue and pointed it out. Check this out...

Microsoft has stated that they are working on it, but have no schedule for Windows 7, 32 bit.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ectre-meltdown

I came across this, which gives credence to the assumption ...

" ... while all major OS flavors — Windows, MacOS and Linux — have patches available, they only target 64-bit versions of their respective operating systems. While 32-bit Linux users may be able to leverage grsecurity patches, x86 Windows users are currently left out in the cold since mitigating this issue on 32-bit systems is even more complex and costly,..."

Chip Flaws Spectre and Meltdown are Actually Three Vulnerabilities and Proving Hard to Mitigate

Yesterday: Upgrade completed successfully, drivers installed.
Today: Windows updates finally completed.
Rebooted several times.
All is working really well.

Decided not to flash the BIOS.
User happy.