Windows – How to Run 64 Bit Programs on a 32 Bit System

32-bit64-bitwindowswindows 10

As the title says, is there a way of running a x64 bit program on a 32 bit system ? If not, is there an emulator or is there a way of upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit for free? NOTE: I am using Windows 10.

Best Answer

There is one way. You can use Qemu or a similar emulator to emulate a complete 64 bit host. However this will come with a significant speed loss.

And just to stress that last part a bit:

  • Running a hypervisor to run a 32 bit VM on a 64 bit host will let most programs run at almost full speed. (Long long ago I tested and reached 99% speed of the host using vmware workstation 5 and dnetc, which is a typical user space program.)
  • Now if you are going to emulate then expect numbers to be the other way around. 99% speed loss would not be surprising.

So, as an answer to part 1: Technically yes. You might not want to though.


or is there a way of upgrading from x32 bit to x64 bit for free.

If your computer has 64 bit hardware (basically everything from the last decade) then you can install a 64 bit OS. DavidPostill's answer is extremely complete on that. Note that this means a full reinstallation. You can not change the windows OS from 32 bit to 64 bit. You will have to completely replace it.



Not associated with qemu. It is just the one I first remembered

As pointed out by Ismael Miguel: As long as your hardware is 64 bit you can use VirtualBox to run a 64 bit OS. Even if you host OS is 32 bit. The documentation for that can be found here.

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