Windows 7 Hardware Requirements

windows-7-capable

Microsoft has now released the “Kinda Final” Windows 7 system requirements which are basically the same as Windows Vista‘s:

1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Windows 7 is a lot easier on the system resources than Windows Vista and it has clearly shown that it works well on Netbooks which fall into these hardware categories. Hardware specifications like this are geared towards users that are looking to upgrade their current computer and are using standard features. When purchasing a new computer expect for it to exceed these requirements. If it does not, don’t blame Microsoft. If you are looking to use the Windows XP Virtual PC mode you will of course need to have a beefier computer:

Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled CPU
2 GB of RAM
31 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 35 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Most computers that were sold with Windows Vista will be capable of running Windows 7. To know for sure you will want to run the Windows Upgrade Advisor (WUA) utility that will asses your computers hardware. WUA has not been officially released yet but expect it in the next month or two.

Check It Out> ZDNet

7 Comments

Leo

Said,

Finally they got smart and decided to come out with a friendly OS that doesn’t require a super computer to run :-)

The Geek

I really want to see how low you can go with the system requirements. It would be interesting to see if it’s possible to install it on a 400 Mhz computer with 256 Mb of ram. Even modern Linux distros would have a hard time pulling that off :)

hey hey hey!…you can run Ubuntu on anything! :-)

uRizen

I’ll have to dig up an old machine to try it on, but I’m using it on my 1.7ghz Centrino, 512mb RAM, Directx 8 video notebook and it works pretty well. After using it for an hour or so it’s running with ~130mb of free RAM and the only thing I’m missing is Aero functionality.

Leo you are making me really want to dig up an old machine once I get back to the US and see if I can install Ubuntu on it :)

And uRizen what is the lowest spec machine you currently have?

For a computer to install Vista/7 it needs to be Windows PE capable so it would need at least 448 MB of RAM. But with a modified PE I could probably get it to install on a machine with as little as 192 MB of RAM.

I need to wait a few months until I am home but I really want to find out how low it can go.

As soon as I can crutch down to the basement I’ll grab my eldest functioning machine with a DVD drive. It’s a HP notebook, 500mhz Duron, 128mb RAM, 40gb HDD, ancient Intel graphics, and has a genuine Windows ME key on the bottom. ;)

It has been running a stripped down WinXP install for quite awhile so I’m curious to see how Win7 would perform in comparison.

“Genuine Windows ME” I am still not sure that ME ever qualified as an operating system :) You might need to drop in a little RAM to get it to work at first but it should be possible.

Windows 7 Hardware Requirements

7 Comments

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