Should I run a 32bit or 64bit Linux guest on my Windows 7 Professional 64 bit? Will I get better performance? Software compatibility is not really an issue for me.

This is kind of subjective as there are a lot of variables at work. What may be the case on one machine may not be the same on another. First of all, what software will you be running in your guest and what is its purpose? Further, what sort of virtualization tool will you be using, for example, VMWare Player, VirtualBox, qemu, etc.? Also, how do you define "performance?"

It also depends upon your physical hardware. For example, older Intel processors without vmx capability will not run virtual machines nearly as well as those with it. That is just one very specific example. As another example, my hardware will let me run a 64 bit guest on a 32 bit host in VMWare Player which is not valid on all hardware. With that said, you should find out what processor can and cannot do and proceed from there.

Your performance will also be affected by other hardware, such as graphics, usb emulation, and the like. If your definition of performance means "how responsive will my full desktop environment be in my virtual machine?" then there are many other factors to consider, especially the case of the rogue desktop environment that *requires* 3D acceleration out of the box.

If you are instead referring to more quantitative benchmarks, again that will depend on your specific hardware and the method of virtualization. Ultimately this will come down to a matter of personal preference. You'll have to do some trial and error and see what works best for your purposes.

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64 bit linux guest would be good. They have more cpu registers as well they are 64 bit wide. Just more cpu registers would make you program faster.

They qwill also only run 32-bit VM's

My guess would be that it is too hard to tell. For the most part a vm should behave like a physical machine. It would require a full test but in either case I'd guess too close to call for most common uses.

Issues are as noted in post #2 about your system.

It would also include many many more variables. How well you distro integrates with the vm selected. Drivers inside the vm may have an effect. The programs you require in the vm would be most dramatic I'd think.

The only obvious effect that I'd see would be the amount or ram. A 32 bit would require and use less in most cases. That may leave your host with enough to reduce any swap file. So an issue with limited ram may be a deciding factor. No page or swap is best but can't always be avoided.

How you configure you client would be of concern in this too with regard to ram amount free.

I'm running sony vaio with core-duo processor that doesn't have virtualization support so I can only run 32-bit guest.