[brettt777]

I have an old Dell XPS 710 that I'm upgrading for my wife. I'm installing a QX6700 CPU, NVidia 8800GTX, 1TB HDD and adding RAM. It had Windows XP Home on it before which is 32 bit. I would like to stay with XP because that's what the wife is familiar with. I would also like to install 8GB of RAM. This obviously requires a 64 bit OS. I have built my own PCs for years but for some reason I don't know the answer to this stupid question; is an upgrade to a 64 bit system as simple as an OS upgrade or is there hardware changes that have to be made also? Can I simply install Windows XP Pro and have a 64 bit system and install 8GB of RAM?

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Hello,

 

XP and Vista/7 are quite similar. XP is very insecure now, and her XPS710 would be very vunerable. I wouldn't recommend keeping XP. But it is your choice, 

[Alan1998]

Hello,

 

XP and Vista/7 are quite similar. XP is very insecure now, and her XPS710 would be very vunerable. I wouldn't recommend keeping XP. But it is your choice, 

[brettt777]

The machine is already XP and I'm keeping that because it's what my wife is familiar with. But it's XP home so it's only 32 bit. I want to be able to install 8GB of RAM so I need a 64 bit OS. Can I simply install XP Pro to make it a 64 bit system or is there hardware that needs to be changed as well?