64-bit Drivers Required?

[DimWit]

Scanned posts. Apologies if this is asked and answered.

Does Win7-64 require 64-bit drivers?

I have a 1 y/o Dell DuoCore 64-bit processor but the Dell drivers site lists only 32-bit Vista drivers for my model. Am I consigned to Win7-32?

Regards,

 

[Thrax]

Yes, 64-bit requires 64-bit drivers.

Do me a favor:
Download a program called CPU-Z.
Give it a run.
Post a picture of the main program like this...

 

[DimWit]

Thanks!
I assumed so.
I attach a screen shot from CPU-Z

 

[Thrax]

Alright, I just wanted to make sure you could get away with using 64-bit on that PC, and you definitely can. Now I'm curious as to why your OEM didn't configure it with x64, and doesn't offer x64 drivers.

It's not impossible to get Windows 7 x64 installed on your notebook. Windows 7 will pick up most of the devices in any modern PC, but you may have a few nagging drivers you'll have to scour the internet for-- we can help you there.

I'd say it's worth the risk.

 

[DimWit]

It's a desktop. We could limp along for a day on one of several other networked computers. But just not indeterminately: either it works day 1 or I reinstall Win 5.1.

At least clicking around by model, Dell's support for x64 is surprisingly sparse. Maybe I'm not wearing my magic decoder ring and I should be in a different place, but the easiest way to find drivers generically nets precious few x64. And searching by Service Tag nets only x32 for my driver list.

I've already downloaded the Vista x32 drivers. I'll do a final back up to an external drive, format** and do a clean install of x32.
** format: I know it's not required for install. That was another attractive part of x64--a fresh start at no extra cost.