I hope am in the right place. I have an iView Cyber PC, an Intel stick with Atom Z3757f and 32GB built in memory. Although the CPU supports x64 but the UEFI (which is from AMI) is 32bit only.
This PC is used by my kid to learn programming and there's this app we need that Microsoft store requires Win 10 x64 to allow me to download it. I tried so hard to find an update for the UEFI with no use and iView tech support tried but were unable to help.
Am not trying to dual boot, I just need help please to install Win 10 x64 (even if that meant that we will be left with very little storage, will manage).
Thanks in advance,
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AFAIK, that's not possible with Windows, but you might ask about it on a Windows forum. Fundamentally, under EFI/UEFI, the bit width (32 vs. 64) of the OS must match the bit width of the firmware, so if you have a 32-bit EFI, you're pretty much locked into a 32-bit OS.
That said, I can imagine some workarounds, but chances are none of them will work well for you:
The boot loaders for Linux (GRUB 2) and macOS support boot-mode switching, so you can (in theory; I've never tried it) boot a 64-bit version of Linux on your PC. GRUB 2 can't directly boot a Windows kernel, though, so this method won't work for booting Windows in this way. The macOS boot loader is, of course, Mac- and macOS-specific, so it's useless to you, too.
If the firmware includes a Compatibility Support Module (CSM), then it can boot an OS in BIOS/legacy mode, and you could install 64-bit Windows in this way. I've never heard of a 32-bit UEFI that comes with a CSM, though; they seem to be stripped down to remove this feature.
It might be possible to run a 64-bit version of Windows in a virtualization environment like VMware or Virtualbox, even on a 32-bit Windows host. My (very limited) understanding is that this requires that the CPU support the VT-x feature, though, which the Intel Atom does not support. A full CPU emulator, like KVM, might do the trick; but it will be significantly slower. Either of these solutions would be memory- and storage-heavy, and so might not work very well on a tiny PC like the one you've got.
Overall, I'd say you probably won't be able to do what you want with the hardware you have. Of the preceding options, a CSM is the only one that would work well, unless a third party has developed a cross-CPU-bit-width boot loader for Windows.
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Virtualization is not practical on such low specs as you said and unfortunately the UEFI doesn't have CSM.
Which Windows forums are you referring to please? Am just hoping someone out there might succeeded in doing installing x64 windows 10 on a 32 bit UEFI. I found multiple threads over the internet but so far no one confirmed they manged to do it.
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I don't frequent Windows forums because I almost never use Windows myself, so I can't recommend any particular forum. Googling "Windows forums" turns up links to quite a few, though. Perhaps somebody else will have a more specific suggestion.
Last edit: Roderick W. Smith 2020-03-09
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Hi all,
I hope am in the right place. I have an iView Cyber PC, an Intel stick with Atom Z3757f and 32GB built in memory. Although the CPU supports x64 but the UEFI (which is from AMI) is 32bit only.
This PC is used by my kid to learn programming and there's this app we need that Microsoft store requires Win 10 x64 to allow me to download it. I tried so hard to find an update for the UEFI with no use and iView tech support tried but were unable to help.
Am not trying to dual boot, I just need help please to install Win 10 x64 (even if that meant that we will be left with very little storage, will manage).
Thanks in advance,
AFAIK, that's not possible with Windows, but you might ask about it on a Windows forum. Fundamentally, under EFI/UEFI, the bit width (32 vs. 64) of the OS must match the bit width of the firmware, so if you have a 32-bit EFI, you're pretty much locked into a 32-bit OS.
That said, I can imagine some workarounds, but chances are none of them will work well for you:
Overall, I'd say you probably won't be able to do what you want with the hardware you have. Of the preceding options, a CSM is the only one that would work well, unless a third party has developed a cross-CPU-bit-width boot loader for Windows.
Thanks @srs5694
Virtualization is not practical on such low specs as you said and unfortunately the UEFI doesn't have CSM.
Which Windows forums are you referring to please? Am just hoping someone out there might succeeded in doing installing x64 windows 10 on a 32 bit UEFI. I found multiple threads over the internet but so far no one confirmed they manged to do it.
I don't frequent Windows forums because I almost never use Windows myself, so I can't recommend any particular forum. Googling "Windows forums" turns up links to quite a few, though. Perhaps somebody else will have a more specific suggestion.
Last edit: Roderick W. Smith 2020-03-09