A common misconception about 64-bit Windows is the amount of RAM that is actually used— some people seem to think it will use double the RAM, while
others incorrectly assume a 64- bit system will be twice as fast as 32-bit. While it's true that 64-bit processes will take a little extra memory, that is a result of the memory pointers being a little bigger to address the larger amount of RAM, and not an actual double in size. Imagine, if you will, an ancient library filing system that has a card to tell you where to find the book in the library—if you
got a bigger box to hold the cards, the library would not double in size, you'd just be able to find the book you were looking for more easily. What will increase with 64-bit Windows is the amount of drive space needed for the operating system—with a
compatibility layer in place, the base OS will take up a few extra GBs of space, though with today's massive hard drives that should hardly be a concern.
