General Question

blastfamy's avatar

Can 32 bit Operating Systems run on 64 bit hardware in a VM?

Asked by blastfamy (2174points) September 28th, 2008

Just got off the phone with my uncle, who needs to drive an obscure german USB device on his new machine. Only problem is…

He’s running a 64-bit vista, which means that this obscure hardware will likely never have a driver for it. I directed him at a virtual machine (sent him to VMware). He says he has a license of a 32 bit XP lying around, but does not want to use that as his primary OS for reasons I cannot understand.

I’m pretty sure that he’ll be able to run the 32 bit operating system on the 64 bit hardware in a VM, but I’m not 100% sure.

Also, most VMs support USB devices, right?

Or do I need to call my uncle back?

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4 Answers

eambos's avatar

I don’t know about in virtualization, but 64 bit hardware can certainly run a 32 bit OS.

eambos (8909points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
tWrex's avatar

Yes it can be run and yes vm’s do support usb. What type of USB device is it? printer? hard drive?

tWrex (1655points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
blastfamy's avatar

It’s a pigeon timer… obscure german USB device…

blastfamy (2174points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
tWrex's avatar

Wow… I don’t even know what that is! Time to google!

tWrex (1655points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…

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