Microsoft is beginning what will be a very long and drawn-out process of no longer supporting 32-bit versions of Windows 10. Beginning with Windows 10 version 2004, which is already available to OEMs and developers, the company is no longer offering a 32-bit version of the OS to OEMs for new PCs. The change is indicated on the Minimum Hardware Requirements documentation.
Notably, this does not impact users that are currently running a 32-bit version of Windows 10 as Microsoft said it remains committed to providing security and feature updates for these devices. What’s more, Microsoft will still make 32-bit versions of the OS available in non-OEM channels to support various upgrade scenarios, we’re told.
Any modern PC that you can buy has a 64-bit CPU, and the simple reason for making this change is because there’s almost no demand for 32-bit PCs. This news is more notable because it’s the beginning of a long road toward them not existing anymore.
Last year with Windows 10 version 1903, Microsoft increased the minimum amount of storage that a new Windows 10 PC can have. Rather than being 16GB on 32-bit devices and 20GB on 64-bit devices, it’s now 32GB across the board. It would seem that doubling the required storage and putting it on par with 64-bit PCs might have been a subtle step toward this.
Microsoft’s Windows 10 May 2020 update is expected to hit general availability in the coming weeks with a wealth of new features in tow such as better indexing support and the option to download setup files from the cloud, among others.
