Hi; I built up a new system with 8Gigs RAM, so I decided to go with Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit. My old system was running Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit. And since I already had the license for 32 bit, and the CD to install 64 bit, it was a no-brainer... but now I'm starting to wonder whether the upgrade to 64 bit was worth it. For one thing, I have been getting BSOD crashes. I have had four of them so far, compared to maybe one for the entire two years I had Win 7 32 bit running. I installed and configured the WinDbg tool, and was able to glean that the crash was due to a Windows driver, which is pretty much what I thought. I searched for updated drivers, but found none. I have the current version of all drivers on the system. Another BSOD occurred while I was running iTunes. That was also a driver issue. Then I started to notice a pattern: The crashes were occurring while I had my WD Elements 1.5TB USB HDD connected to the system. Uh oh... maybe the drive is bad? Don't know about that yet. I haven't run any tests on it. The last BSOD crash I had was yesterday morning. When I looked at the dump file, I found that the msi.exe file had caused the crash. So I did some Google work, and found that I may need to de-register and re-register msi.exe. I did all of that, then ran the sfc tool to check all Windows files, but it came up with no errors. Knowing that BSOD crashes could be caused by hardware problems, I ran the Windows memory diagnotsic. It came up with no errors. I previously ran a check on the HDD Windows is installed on, and that too has no errors. I have yet to check the 2nd HDD and the USB HDD. I have SiSandra, but have to install it. Hope it runs on 64 bit... I have lots of other tools too. But I doubt there is any hardware issue. I thought maybe I need to re-install the Windows installer, but so far, I have not had another crash since doing the msi.exe re-register. There are other issues with 64 bit. I cannot run a software app, TrakAXpc Pro, because its licensing service (Nalpeiron) will not install on Twin 7 64 bit, but it was fine on 32 bit. I really don't want to go back to 32 bit, as I would be wasting half the RAM in my new system. So this is a learning experience. It's good to have the tools that I now have installed, and learning about crash dump files is good. I have always been a tekkie, power user and always tweaking this or that. Sometimes though, in a fit of frustration, I start to consider dumping Windows altogether, and installing Linux! If Linux would only run half the apps I paid good money for... So, what do you say? FW

There is absolutely nothing wrong, or defective, with 64-bit Win 7. I have it running on 3 desktop computers and one laptop and I have not encountered any problems with it in the past 3 years. From your description of problem, I suspect you have some hardware causing your problems. It may be memory, it may be a CPU, it may be your HDD, but in any case it is something with your hardware, not Windows 7! Even your problems with TrakAXpc Pro and Nalpeiron could be hardware related. Have you discussed your software problems with either company?Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Like Rick Dee, my experience is that W7x64 is a very stable OS. Unlike him, I suspect that your undisclosed BSOD errors may well be caused by 3rd party software, such as a firewall. As to your licensing service problem, are you sure this is not security software-related also? MemTest86+ is preferably to the Windows memory tester, 7+ runs, overnight is best - any error means you have a hardware problem. Error messages and codes listed fully and BSOD minidumps uploaded to Skydrive would all be helpful if you would like someone to look into your problems.

In my experience, the 64 bit version is more stable. The problem is most likely hardware or driver related.

Don't know about hardware, but will do more testing. TrakAx Pro is a problem. I have received info from tek support that there is a solution, and I should be receiving it shortly. Sorry for accusing Windows of having bugs. I was in a bit of a rough mood over the problem, having built up the new system after having real hardware problems with the old. I will run all the hardware tests I can get a hold of for free, but am not going to purchase tools beyond what I already have. I'll give the Mem Test86+ a try, but first, I want to remove the Avast antivirus. I can go without any AV for a while; it's not a problem with my safe browsing habits, and ability to completely disconnect from the network. Let me also mention that after I installed Win 7 64 bit, I resized the partition on which it is installed, using "mini tool partition wizard", which seemed to work perfectly. I decided to make the entire 1TB HDD a single partition. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do that after having installed the OS. I think I also need to shut down Perfect Disk, and anything else that loads automatically with Windows. Thanks for your advice FW

Don't know about hardware, but will do more testing. TrakAx Pro is a problem. I have received info from tek support that there is a solution, and I should be receiving it shortly. Sorry for accusing Windows of having bugs. I was in a bit of a rough mood over the problem, having built up the new system after having real hardware problems with the old. I will run all the hardware tests I can get a hold of for free, but am not going to purchase tools beyond what I already have. I'll give the Mem Test86+ a try, but first, I want to remove the Avast antivirus. I can go without any AV for a while; it's not a problem with my safe browsing habits, and ability to completely disconnect from the network. Let me also mention that after I installed Win 7 64 bit, I resized the partition on which it is installed, using "mini tool partition wizard", which seemed to work perfectly. I decided to make the entire 1TB HDD a single partition. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do that after having installed the OS. I think I also need to shut down Perfect Disk, and anything else that loads automatically with Windows. Thanks for your advice FW