As a system administrator or general tech person at your company, there will be times when you’ll need to find out if the Windows computer you’re working on is running a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. You’ll need this information so you know which version of software to install on your system, or to see what will be compatible with your system architecture in the future.

There are two easy ways to find out if you are running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows.

The first way is through the computer properties information window. To get there, left click on the Windows start button.

Right click on “Computer” in the Windows option menu.

And move your cursor down to “Properties” at the bottom of the menu list and left click.

This will bring up the Windows system information window which will show what system type you are running:

The second way to determine if your system is 32-bit or 64-bit in the Windows operating system is through the dos command line. Click on the Windows start button and type “cmd” in the run box.

If you’ve run the dos command prompt on this system before you should see the “cmd” icon in your recently run programs.

Then in your dos command  terminal window type:

systeminfo | more

Note: You don’t actually need spaces between the pipe symbol “|” and the rest of the command, they were just added for clarity. You can run a “systeminfo|more” command with no spaces.

And the computer’s system information tool runs gathering a heap of data about your computer. Just look for the “System Type” line in the output. If it says “x64” you have a 64-bit system, if it says x86 you’re running a 32-bit system.

So Happy Friday Silicon Valley! Now get out and enjoy that Northern California sunny and mild winter weather that you all pay so much to enjoy here!