Most intel Atoms are x86 only.

Are you surprised Apple is cutting support for the powermac ? It's a completely different architecture.

Would you upgrade an Atom based device with Windows 7 Home Premium which already costs half as much as the device itself?

Would Intel stay on 32 bit if MS dropped support?

home PCs are >4 years minimum.
Work PCs are ~4 years on average.

++ you'll earn more money by making products that will work with as many PCs as possible;)

I'm running Win 7 Pro on my MSI Wind FYI, it's faster then XP for general usage; it's a 32-bit only CPU.

AMD A64: 2003
Intel 64: 2004

We are past those 4 years and my argument that it makes no sense to BUY an OS for such old PCs is still valid (most consumers just buy a new PC).


You also do not earn more money when you make products that work with all PCs, there is always the cost side of having to run almost twice as many SKUs, do the testiung for both versions, develop and support 2 versions.

afaik Atom is released more recently ;)
also there are A LOT of applications which don't play nice in a 64-bit OS;
even if there's 32-bit emulation.

The decicion to stay on 32bit with Atom was made in the past, where MS failed to take a bold step and declare that they don't support 32 bit in 7.

Again, you don't take into account that it's Microsoft. Noone can afford to ignore them (Windows 7 made sure this will stay this way for the next 3 years).

Without Intel, Microsoft wouldn't have a platform to sell their software on; without Microsoft, Intel would have platform without software.

hand in hand;)

Okay, not !
The thing is, without Microsoft, Intel would still have Apple to ssell their stuff to. Without Intel, Microsoft would sell their stuff on AMD platforms, or maybe even go to the dark side and code their stuff to work on PPCs :D .

For the Atom cpu's, Microsoft is probably more hoping to sell 7 already installed on future nettops instead of just XP.

Very few tend to upgrade their OS's, not many 32bit-only Pentium 4's left either. :-p Cost of the OS is > than worth of the PC.

You would also save a good deal on costs by only having to develop/qualify a single 64bit stack, and being able to focus development resources. Potential gains in sales would be also be small, so far I only know of one individual that has upgraded to Windows 7 but still has a 32bit CPU.

About half the Atom's DO support 64-bit. Nettop Atoms were mostly 64bit...

Atoms are still a small slice of the pie, and no other currently manufactured CPU is 32-bit only. Since some Atoms support 64bit, would not be much issue for MS to impose on Intel to scrap the remaining 32bit versions.

Windows 7 Starter is 32-bit only... could have sold Starter on netbooks/nettops and am sure that would have made laptop manufacturers very happy. Windows Server 2008 R2 is 64bit only, no reason for the rest of the Windows versions to not follow suit, except for Starter.

Wutske, you are likely right in that MS wanted people to accept Windows 7 and prevent a repeat of Vista, that may have been why they refused to rock the boat any. Micorosft has zero reason to make Windows 8 32bit though, except for maybe a Starter version for the developing markets.

Secondly, I have still not seen anyone list specific problems with 64bit compatibility... I've been using 64bit OS's for three years, the only issues I still see today are with legacy hardware/software. If legacy compatibility is an issue, then they shouldn't be upgrading OS's, or should just dual-boot.

source? Afaik Atom is mainly netbook, the nettops are a flop:)