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@hjwp hjwp commented Sep 20, 2025

Windows 10 was the last version of windows to support 32-bit, that dates back to 10 years ago now, and the latest version, Windows 11, only has 64-bit, since 2021. most manufacturers stopped had stopped building 32-bit computers by 2017 (https://www.quora.com/Are-32-bit-computers-still-being-produced-as-of-2017)

This change proposes we remove the big, fiddly chunk of instructions for "how to check whether you have 32-bit windows",

but! it replaces them with a mention of using 32-bit in the already-existing "what to do if you have any problems" paragraph, later on.

my hope is that this makes life easier for the 90% of users on 64-bit windows, whilst not making things that much worse for people with older PCs.

am aware that other cultural contexts may be v different in respect, where there is a lot of older hardware around!

Changes in this pull request:

Windows 10 was the last version of windows to support 32-bit, that dates back to 10 years ago now, and the latest version, Windows 11, only has 64-bit, since 2021.  most manufacturers stopped had stopped building 32-bit computers by 2017 (https://www.quora.com/Are-32-bit-computers-still-being-produced-as-of-2017)

This change proposes we remove the big, fiddly chunk of instructions for "how to check whether you have 32-bit windows",

but!  it replaces them with a mention of using 32-bit in the already-existing "what to do if you have any problems" paragraph, later on.

my hope is that this makes life easier for the 90% of users on 64-bit windows, whilst not making things that much worse for people with older PCs.

am aware that other cultural contexts may be v different in respect, where there is a lot of older hardware around!
When the installation completes, you may see a dialog box with a link you can follow to learn more about Python or about the version you installed. Close or cancel that dialog -- you'll be learning more in this tutorial!

Note: If you are using an older version of Windows (7, Vista, or any older version) and the Python {{ book.py_version }} installer fails with an error, then install all Windows Updates and try to install Python again. If you still have the error, try installing Python version {{ book.py_min_release }} from [Python.org](https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/).
Note: If you are using an older version of Windows (7, Vista, or any older version) and the Python {{ book.py_version }} installer fails with an error, then install all Windows Updates and try to install Python again. If you still have the error, try installing the 32-bit version of Python, or try installing an older version, Python {{ book.py_min_release }}, from [Python.org](https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/).
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Should Windows 10 be listed here, too, now? E.g.

Suggested change
Note: If you are using an older version of Windows (7, Vista, or any older version) and the Python {{ book.py_version }} installer fails with an error, then install all Windows Updates and try to install Python again. If you still have the error, try installing the 32-bit version of Python, or try installing an older version, Python {{ book.py_min_release }}, from [Python.org](https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/).
Note: If you are using an older version of Windows (10, 7, Vista, or any older version) and the Python {{ book.py_version }} installer fails with an error, then install all Windows Updates and try to install Python again. If you still have the error, try installing the 32-bit version of Python, or try installing an older version, Python {{ book.py_min_release }}, from [Python.org](https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/).

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yes or maybe we can just say "an older PC or version of Windows" and forget specifying specific versions?

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