64 bit processor

[#1]

Will a 32 bit operating system run on a 64 bit processor? I have a big problem. My Windows server "Atticserver" (as detailed at http://www.seanbranagh.ie/computing) has died after 7 years of service. I am very sad about this as it was the first computer I ever built by hand. It has been running without issue continously 24/7 for about 5 years. I have tried all the usual including air duster, resetting bios, different memory/graphics/power supply but the motherboard will just not post. I am working on a website which I need to have finished by tommorrow evening. Problem is that all of the files I am working with are on the mapped drives in that server. I could take the drives out and put them in another machine but it will be easier just to pick up a motherboard bundle tommorrow and do a quick install which is why I need to know if my 32 bit XP Pro will work on a new 64 bit processor.

[#2]

All 32 bit o/s run on  a 64 bit pc with no problems. I would get the data off before I did anything by putting the drive into another pc as a slave.
If you install a new o/s anything can happen but one of the main things is if you are running ntfs and there are permissions on directories then the new o/s wont recognize the sid of the old pc so it will get its knickers into a twist. You will need to take ownership of the directories in order to get at the files.

[#3]

I am not concerned about the content of the disks. The computer has 4 disks with a total of 7 partitions. Windows goes on a 20Gb disk all by itself. I have installed XP several hundred times on both my own computers and others since its release and have yet to loose anything. Just to be sure I also keep the really important stuff ie. digital photos on my Linux machine which has mirrored drives. It is something I have been preaching to people for years. For God sake don't put anything of importance in "My Documents" or on the Desktop unless you want to loose it!

[#4]

Why not install Linux?
It will be fine to install a 32 bit or a 64 bit or even a 64 bit OS running a mixture of 32 bit and 64 bit components.
It will even handle a NTFS file system if you really want to.

[#5]

I do run a linux webserver (http://www.seanbranagh.ie) which lives in my attic beside the XP machine but I am still at the learning stage (using Fedora).
I like XP Pro for this machine (for the time being) cos it is quick and really easy for file and printer sharing with my other (xp) machines.
I do eventually plan to switch all my machines to Linux but right now I need this computer back up and running ASAP and since I know XP inside out that is what is going back on.

[#6]

Why not get the Ubuntu 8.04 liveCD AMD64 version? It runs sweet as a nut, and should detect your hardware fine.

[#7]

I said that  - but it has to admitted that getting his Windows machines to co-operate (even using Windows "standards" like SMB) can be a bit of a pain.

[#8]

I could never get smb to work properly on Fedora. I use Webmin for a lot of stuff and there is way too many options. For my Fedora webserver in the attic running http://www.seanbranagh.ie I use FTP to transfer files. This is simple and reliable. I think Linux is absolutely fantastic. The stability (when compared with Microsoft platforms) is almost unbelievable! It just will not crash no matter what, whereas Windows will happily crash without any human input whatsoever. This is why I use Linux for my webserver. There is almost no limit to what you can do with Linux also. I find the only problem is when you want to do something simple like install a wireless dongle for example.

[#9]

I managed (after much toil) to get Samba and smb working. The windows PC's required a lot of bashing.
Since I believe Windows now supports the ipp printing protocol, life might be a tiny bit easier - I haven't got a M$ PC to try it on anymore.

[#10]

I installed Hardy AMD64 to a desktop PC (P4 550, 1.5GB RAM) the other week - TV tuner card, USB external drives, motherboard and unbranded wireless card all worked out of the box. Even the power management's better than it was on Windows.
The only thing that gave me any grief at all, was the Radeon graphics card - and ATI's pathetic support for Linux is well-known. But last week I downloaded a dev release of the driver, and that's sorted it.
I've even mounted all my old NTFS drives - SCSI and IDE - without difficulty.
Now, all I need to do is switch to a package which means my weekly update check doesn't send me past my download limit for the month...