indeed.
to stay on topic, for people that do not feel like going to windows10 (going to win10 with no thinking is not an advice i would give, as a builder and long time IT specialist, i m still having issues and weird things going on)
You can download at microsoft an official ISO file of your OS (win 7 or win 8) or borrow it from a friend, as long as the "edition" is the same (home, pro, ultimate etc). the licence number is the same for 32 and 64 bits.
be aware though, drivers have to be reinstalled for your hardware, but, 99.9% of the time, hardware is compliant with 32 or 64 bits system, it doesnt affect it.
most of the time, your computer will feel a lot better in 64bits environment (better memory management, full memory use (no 3GB limit anymore), more speed, smoother experience)
As usually, if you run a 32bits system, you run it for a very long time, a full backup is advised, with a "from scratch" installation. Use the occasion, if you can afford it, to grab a 250GB SSD from a certain manufacturer that wants to take over the market (90euros for 250GB), and make your clean install on the empty SSD, keeping on the side the old drive with your old 32bits system, making it easier to bring back the old data in the new system.
unless you have a brand new computer, most of the time, any computer older than 2013-2014 will run windows 7 with no problems. Windows 8 has to be avoided unless "hardware requires it" (laptops usually, with no windows 7 drivers for specific sub devices)
windows 10 is........ a bit like going in the dark of the galaxy with a class E frame shift drive, it does the job, but it can be long and painful, with a lot of deadends and U-turns.
and concerning windows 10 : as long as you have traces of your old system (aka you upgraded through windows update from 7/8 to 10) you will have problems.
best solution is to grab the new serial number generated after the update (google is your friend, magicalbeans key grabber does the job) (your genuine 7/8 licence has been changed to a 10 licence key), backup settings and data, get the USB Windows 10 installer from microsoft, format the drive, and make a clean install using the newly generated windows 10 key.
Installing windows 10 this way guarantees less... surprises and semi-digested remains of the older system.
(updating a windows OS has always been a bad idea, i remember those as far as i can remember windows 3.11 and the older one, MSDOS versions mixup and so on)
edit : the issue is 4 sticks, they demand too much power from the northbridge. using 2x4GB sticks would do the stuff. problem is that very few modules work. Corsair dominator was one of the rare ram that worked on P5Qxx. And on today's market, i just cant find any of those, even second hand)
