On 4/21/20 5:38 AM, Frank Millman wrote: > On 2020-04-21 12:02 PM, Simone Bravin wrote: >> >> I found that I had downloaded Python from what I would call "automatic >> check version link" and that downloaded the 32-bit version, but my >> notebook have 64-bit, so I changed the version to the 64-bit one. >> > > I have had the same problem in the past. Most software download pages > seem to detect whether you are running 32 or 64 bit, and default to the > correct download option. > > Python shows a big yellow 'Download the latest version for Windows' > button, which most people will select by default. However, it actually > downloads the 32 bit version, without any indication that this is what > it is doing. > > I could have the details wrong - I am not going to repeat the install > just to check. But this is what I recall from the last time I did this. > > This seems like a good time to bring this up, as in another thread we > are discussing how to improve the download experience on Windows for > newbies.
There's a long-running thread on this in, well, more than one place. The experts on the Windows experience in general (i.e. Microsoft folks) maintained for a long time that the 32-bit Python was the correct default - they have usage statistics on a worldwide basis that nobody else could have access to. That stance may have softened a bit but there's been no change to the web page yet. The web page does OS detection, but not bitness-detection, and yes that's intentional but won't go into that here. The 32-bit Python runs just fine on 64-bit Windows, by the way. There shouldn't have been a problem with it. There's also nothing wrong with switching to the 64-bit version if you like - mainly that choice should these be driven by what extra packages are available; for a long time it was more likely that binary wheels were available for 32-bit Python, and I think now that's actually shifting such that some developers may not be uploading the 32-bit wheels any longer. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
