Upgrading 32-bit Win7 to 64-bit Win10?

There is one solution to your problem.

What you need to do is clone your existing installation to a virtual hard drive.

Then you can mount the vhd in a Hyper-V virtual machine (legacy bios gen 1).

You can then still run all the old apps in 32bit mode.

For this to be effective, you would need a pc with at least500 MB ssd (preferably 2), 16GB Ram, Windows 1Pro 0 Pro. You would need a moderately fast CPU (i5 at least).

Once you have the windows 7 clone running in a virtual machine, you could update it to Windows 10 32bit.

Then over time you can install apps on host, leaving those that cannot be ungraded in virtual machine.

In terms of performance, the virtual machine would probably be faster than your old pc.

It may sound a bit daunting but with a bit of effort it can be done.

bobkn said:

It is not permitted to upgrade a 32 bit Windows to a 64 bit one. Never has been, as far a I know.

A clean install would be your only option.

Sorry.

I hope that you have installers for all of your applications, and that none of them are 16 bit applications (or 32 bit applications with 16 bit installers). Win X64 won't run 16 bit software.

There is a workaround solution i.e. clone old pc to a virual hard drive, and then mount vhd in a HyperV virtual machine.

To add my experience, got a new 14" Notebook 2 weeks ago with Win10, during setup got the latest update, rebooted and checked, got the Win11 Upgrade, still has the Program Files (x86) folder, only 32-bit I've installed is Moffsoft Calculator.

Winfried said:

In the same vein, I was thinking of getting a new computer, hook both hosts on a KVM switch, and switch back and forth to install and reconfigure apps as I go through the list.

Do bear in mind that the various virtual machine suggestions would allow you to share desired files across both 'machines'.
- So, for example, you might install Office 365 on your new computer yet also want to be able to work on documents in an application in your old computer.
- A KVM switch would not achieve that.
- A networking approach would achieve sharing but would expose an unsupported OS [albeit one hidden from the outside world by appropriate router settings].


I wish you the very best of luck in whichever approach you adopt,
Denis

Make sure you don't get stuck with a single language O/S, assuming you buy a PC with the O/S included.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...5-b34e57a08abf

And there could be a progressive move to new PCs in the shops with Win 11... though personally I'm not convinced that is progressive.