Windows – Office 2013 Professional Plus – 64 bit or 32 bit

64-bitmicrosoft-officeoffice-2013-previewwindows 7

I have a copy of Office Professional Plus 2013 (not the preview, the real thing) – it comes in 32 and 64 bit varieties. Which one should I install? What are the pluses and minuses?

Currently I have Office 2010 (looks like a 32-bit version as evidenced by WinWord.exe *32 entry in Task Manager) on a Windows 7 x64, 8GB RAM, Dual Core machine. And it works fine.

What should I install?

Best Answer

Obviously the 64 bit if you want to make full use of the hardware capability of your system, but here are a few points to consider:

What is in the 32-bit version of Office but is not included in the 64-bit version of Office?

ActiveX controls library, ComCtl This library contains ActiveX controls that are used to build solutions. It is most commonly used in the following Microsoft Office programs: Access, Excel, and Word. SharePoint List control The list view in SharePoint Technology is not available to people using the 64-bit version of Office.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/choose-the-32-bit-or-64-bit-version-of-office-HA010369476.aspx#_Toc254341418

This guy argues for 32 bit Office since the vast majority of users won't gain anything from 64 bit:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/240684/microsoft_office_32_or_64_bit_.html

The same things should apply for Office 2013 too.

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