old hardware I have ten year old discontinued hi-tech audio creation hardware installed on win7, which only has and uses 32 bit drivers. I could not use it in Vista, but I can use it in win7. I can't use it in virtualxp in win7, but win7 rocks my old hardware! I also have a tvtuner card that couldn't be used in Vista (no driver support), but works in win7 x86.
Nope... Atom N280 wich is installed in many netbooks don't support x64 (also many atoms don't support it, only few does).
Regarding x86 vs x64: Everyone in my office thought I was crazy for installing Vista x64 on my work PC (and many thought I was crazy just for installing Vista ). They were right of course, I had lots of trouble even with things like java applications (where it shouldn't matter if you are running them on a 32-bit or a 64-bit VM). And I should mention that we are all software developers. 64-bit is fine if you aren't doing any real work or need vast amounts of memory for some reason. Otherwise it's just a waste of memory and CPU speed, at best. The day that all released software will be 64-bit is far away (the switch from 16-bit to 32-bit which had very very very apparent benefits took years) and if MS makes Win 8 64-bit exclusively, they will just ensure that everybody will use Win 7 even longer than XP.
There are benefits for both versions. 64-bit is more future proof, more secure, but has also drawbacks - like signed 64bit drivers (I know this can be 'hacked' via testmode signing but average Joe can have problems with it), more mem requirement (don't tell me ram is cheap - it is, but again - average Joe can have troubles even with some ram upgrades), some low-level driver dependant appz (like AV's, Firewalls etc.) could have problems with 64bit. And as it goes for x86 - the only three reasons I could imagine to use it is either - have some old hardware that doesn't have 64bit drivers, the second would be - you are less tech-aware and do not have all the knowledge (or time/will/money) to use 64bit truly, or - you have <3.5GB Ram
"tomorrow : I hardly call tests from one firewall application to be the ultimate proof that x64 is more secure". it seems u didnt understand the test. it's about launching various malwares on each OS without any kind of protection, so only the OS is able to protect itself or not, this is not about any firewall, and we can see with the results that the 64bit version is able to block more malwares than the 32bit version cause of the guardian kernel and the digital drivers signature. the fact that comodo coded this app doesnt mean this is not real malwares attitude they added, u can find them anywhere in some files or by surfing the web, and they're able to corrupt your system.
OK let me put it this way. Ever notice that the Internet Explorer icon launches IE32 even in Windows 7 x64? Is it because the installation decided that you are "less tech-aware"? Or is it because there's not a 64-bit version of Flash or even Silverlight? As I said above most techies didn't bother with Vista, let alone Vista x64. And most developers (even MS developers, in Silverlight's case) still don't bother with 64-bit because they always have other, more significant, priorities. In addition, the vast majority of people running Vista x64 aren't even aware of it (it just came pre-installed), so calling them sth like "more tech-aware" is a stretch. Sure MS did probably a good job with "covering up" 64-bit installations to the point that they are mostly invisible to end users and don't have that many problems on the surface. But then MS did a pretty good job with forcing Vista upon everyone
I agree with you nearly completely. However running 32bit apps isn't a problem in x64 because - like you said- MS did cover it very good. I'm still waiting for the 64-bit plugins as you probably are, but I can manage without them - cause I use a 32bit browser (opera) anyway. We'll see the developers moving towards the 64bit more and more but it still will take a few years to 'shift their priorities'. My mistake calling the 64-bit users more tech-aware - I forgot that most of the notebooks/pc's that come with more than 3GB come with 64-bit OS preinstalled. However if you are installing the 64-bit OS by your choice then I assume you have more IT-knowledge than average Joe, cause it will be needed to tweak all up to your needs.