Installing windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit

linnemeyerhere said:

varies from 3.4 to 3.2

This is for windows 7 right? That is, even if the motherboard allows more ram, win 7 32 bit can only use 3.2-3.4gb?

With SOME Dell's what Win 7 installs doesn't always work. With newer systems this is not a problem but systems in the era of the XPS 400, which has Dell proprietary hardware on it the user may run into problems with some non-Dell device drivers. But, as I previously noted Dell has Vista 32 bit drivers and they usually work without problems on Win 7 32 bit.

I do a lot of support on the Dell users forum so this is not the first Dell upgrade I've seen.

linnermeyerhere,

I do apologize if I made you understood wrong. I do currently have windows xp sp3 32-bit in my xps 400, not 64-bit.

Hi people,

Thank you very much for all your comments and suggestions. This weekend, I decided to install windows 7 32-bit in a new empty hard drive in my old dell xps 400. Everything went smooth. "windows 7 advisor" was pretty accurate in my case. Everything was compatible, and the only real thing I need was the drivers for my audio soundblaster xtreme card as "windows 7 advisor" warned me. Just in case, I installed the latest release of my intel chipset. That's all. Everything was peachy. Thank you again.

If you have any performance problems, then first thing to try then will be to roll back the Intel chipset drivers you added.

This is why it was suggested you stick with the Win7 installer drivers unless there are performance problems first.

This is not XP or Vista. MS spent a fortune to make Win7 installer driver-complete, with newer arriving quickly via optional Windows Updates.