Windows 7 Minimum Requirements
Windows 7 is the next Operating System release from Microsoft. I’m using it on my working laptop since Microsoft made available the beta for download, and so far I have nothing but praise about the OS. I’m pretty sure the official public release will be much better than the beta version. so, you might be wondering what are the requirements to run Windows 7 with full features? is it a hog resource like Vista? not quite. I installed Windows Vista on this the same laptop and I had to uninstall it because it was too slow and not compatible with many essential applications I use at work, but I haven’t had any compatibility issue with Windows 7, and Windows 7 is much quicker than Vista or XP, or so it seems. the hardware on my laptop is as follow:
The video card is Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family which supports the DX9 graphics for the aero candy look stuff. I have a CD/DVD RW which is required for the installation of windows 7 DVD.
as you can see, my hardware is not very powerful, in fact this laptop is more than 2 years old, laptops today are built with better hardware to support the new OSs resource demand. but what’s the minimum requirements to run Windows 7? the official requirements for Windows 7 are:
- 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
- 1GB of memory
- 16GB of available disk space
- Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
- A DVD-R/W drive
These are basically the minimum requirements to run Windows vista, but I believe you should be able to run Windows 7 on less powerful hardware. probably you won’t be able to run the sleek look on Windows aero, but windows should perform just fine on:
- 1 GHz processor
- 512 MB of Memory
- 15GB of Hard drive space – if you disable the system protection and system restore on the computer you should be able to run windows 7 on a smaller hard drive.
well, the only big difference there is memory, I believe Windows 7 can be ran comfortably with 512 MB of memory.
what do you think?
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thanx for da post…
i have almost the same config as u mentioned…
nw my doubt is how do i “find out how much graphics memory is in use in windows 7″
anyways i have 1gig of RAM + intel 945 express chipset family integrated graphics.
my rating is 3.2 (got dat for aero experience) … so can i continue using the aero theme on windows 7 without any problems?
thanx in advance
I am so worried about minimum requirement. My computer is 4 year old and I still get good speed on XP. I think I only going to miss Aero interface otherwise my system meet minimum requirement. I will definitely report here after installing the Windows7 RC version to help others.
People dont worry im testing 7 on alot of computers and even the little notebooks you can get i have two in the house and they run perfect. also im running it on one thats 5 years old a 64 bit amd 2600+ everything working well better than vista easy and xp iv just forgotten about. Dont forget alot of problems will be solved by using direct x 9 instead of 10 will help older computers and 7 also uses less system resources id say go for it what have you got to loose. if you dont want to do anything to the os your using now get an old hard drive and try it with that. You can easily just connect the old one up and use that for a while.
hi, i have vista premium installed on my hp notebook(pavillion dv6502) .
processor is AMD turion 64*2 mobile 1.8 ghz and RAM 1gb. Display adapter NVIDIA GeForce/nForce 630M.
does my notebook meet minimum requirements for windows 7 if yes than how could i arrange various drivers because i faced network drivers problem when i installed XP on a partition.
PLZ Suggest ASAP
Hi ravi, yes your laptop seems to be capable of running Windows 7, even though 1 GB of memory might be low, I have seen windows 7 running just find on low hardware computers, so you should be fine.
regarding the drivers, windows 7 does a pretty good job finding the proper drivers for your hardware that I believe you won’t need to install any driver by yourself. when I installed Windows 7 on my Dell XPS 1012 laptop, it found all the drivers for it.
give it a try, and see the results, you should be fine.
I have a Dell Dimension 3100( bought in 2006)currently running win XP x86 home edition. I ran the win 7 upgrade advisor and everything came back compatable exept the graphics card( which I will upgrade asap!) after that I want to know if I can upgrade over xp or do I have to do a clean install? I’ve been on so many help forums, some say you can upgrade others say no. This seems to be the only site that is consistantand helpful, PLS HELP SOOOOO FRUSTRATED!!
BTW, I plan to run win 7 home prem. nothing specail. THX in advance
@Melanie
If you ran the Windows Advisor then I should say you are golden! [] However,you need to do a CLEAN INSTALL; this is my professional opinion because there is NO WAY to save your settings. The OS are just too different. IF you had VISTA then you could do the upgrade with no problems. BUT! I would still recommend a CLEAN INSTALL because I have never seen an upgrade last as long as a clean install does. There have been times where you needed to re-install the OS anyway. But I ALWAYS RECOMMEND that when a person wants to upgrade their OS to a newer version that they get the FULL VERSION (which does the clean install, FYI
, anyway. I, personally,mind you, NEVER liked the idea of using just the upgrade version of any operating system (OS) because an upgrade does not act in the same way as a full version does. If for some strange reason in the future you needed to do a clean install and you just had (purchased only) the upgrade OS instead of the full version OS then you would be FORCED to install Windows XP or higher AND THEN install the UPGRADE version of the Win7 OS. This is the way Microsoft describes it in their forums.
So to recap:
YES YOU CAN USE THE UPGRADE (from XP (and higher)) OF THE WINDOWS 7 OS . . . . .
BUT . . .
In my experience I would get the FULL VERSION and do a CLEAN INSTALL versus the upgrade option any day of the week! []
By the way, You CAN use a FULL VERSION to do an upgrade install, but why bother.
Also, the main differences between the three “flavors” of Windows 7 Home, Professional and Ultimate are as follows:
Home Edition: Improved Desktop, speed, small network integration, etc.
Professional AND Ultimate Editions: In addition to above: Can run what is called “XP Mode” which is about a 500MB download from Microsoft’s site, of a “virtual” XP OS that runs in a Window UNDER Windows 7. Both also have a Domain Join feature an automatic backup feature for home and business.
Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL: Has one major difference between itself and Professional: and that would the BitLocker(tm) program which is basically like TrueCrypt. It gives you that extra security that you can encrypt your hard drives with a password so that they cannot be copied even if the hard drives get pulled from the system onto another computer without your password. (The final is that you can switch between 35 languages; big deal!
I hope this helps you, Melanie and all the rest of you wondering what to do!
Cheers! Good Luck
Spirit Wolfe
I am concerned about it. you guys are mentioning 2-5 year old computers. My laptop is almost 7 years old, and works amazing with xp, concerned I can’t say the same when I get 7.
I’m using an hp pavilion zv5000
3.0ghz Pentium 3
2 gigs of memory
128mb video (best at its time)
windows xp
with xp and some tweeks, this runs faster then any of my roommates or friends lap tops. Can play world of warcraft without error or lag, as well as counterstrike source.
Clearly it can’t play games as great as newer laptops, but for almost all other tasks its response time is nearly instant. I think it’s due to xp.
your website is too slow in accessing searches
I have a system configuration of
Intel Pentium 4 processor of 3.06 Ghz
Asus Motherboard of P5GC/MX1333
2048 Gb Ram
Nvidia Geeforce 8400 512Mb Graphic card
160Gb hard disk [hard disk is very old]
Will this configuration be enough for running a 32-bit windows 7 OS , And will Adobe photoshop CS4/CS3 and Lightroom 3 run smoothly or do I need to upgrade anything ?