no its just software in my opinion. try and get a hold of a copy of windows xp pro, if you go the legal route get the acedemic upgrade version as its cheapest. there is plenty of point to using a 32 bit OS. athlon 64's were outperforming pentium 4's before ms released the newer 64 bit windows. seriously, avoid x64 windows like the plague. almost all of the forum members here just use 32 bit windows even though i would say the majority of us have 64 bit processors. there are just too many problems with x64 windows