win7 on 1gb ram

[avibky]

i am having a 3.2ghz intel p4 with ht. i have 1gb ram so should i install win7 on it. I will use it for surfing ,mail,some light games etc, word ,office etc.

Hv used win7 on 1.25 gb ram(1gb+256mb) and was very fast and zippy

any answers

[Alpha]

DO you have a graphics card? If no then you wont be able to use aero. And without aero win 7 and win xp is same (for general users). Btw your configuration is ok(just ok) to use win 7.

[avibky]

i hv graphic card but wont support aero

[Samuel]

I have a similar configuration like you bala. I feel that Win 7 is very fast than XP... and I recommend you to upgrade

[Grr]

I say No...and if u then also install W7- don't use it for browsing..

[Nikhil]

I was running Win7 with 1gb RAM with no issues.
install the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor tool to check whether your system can handle Win7.

[jelson]

I've read of Win7 being run with even less RAM (as an experiment). Can't recall the URL though.

However, I do remember the key is turn off unnecessary services and a number of the new fancy, WOW gimmicks.

I did a test run with Win7 on 1.5 GB ==> very nice and very pretty.

BUT... you knew that was coming

Standard install, added Firefox... and 3 tabs in FF resulted in ~ 1 GB in use.

Not enough free RAM for my normal usage... back to XP and dreaming of a leet machine with 6 GB of DDR3

[Samuel]

I've read of Win7 being run with even less RAM (as an experiment). Can't recall the URL though.

However, I do remember the key is turn off unnecessary services and a number of the new fancy, WOW gimmicks.

I did a test run with Win7 on 1.5 GB ==> very nice and very pretty.

BUT... you knew that was coming

Standard install, added Firefox... and 3 tabs in FF resulted in ~ 1 GB in use.

Not enough free RAM for my normal usage... back to XP and dreaming of a leet machine with 6 GB of DDR3

FF using 1 GB Something is seriously wrong. It's not the usual case Jelson

[Grr]

FF using 1 GB Something is seriously wrong. It's not the usual case Jelson

If the FF pages have ads & active scripts - RAM consumption is huge....self experience..

---------- Post added at 08:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------

I also was thinking of installing windows 7 on my old xp but guess it's not a good idea after reading this thread.

U r right Mike. Alternatively u could do a fresh installation of XP...

[jelson]

FF using 1 GB Something is seriously wrong. It's not the usual case Jelson

not just FF... that's total commit charge for the entire machine as reported by Task Mgr. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

---------- Post added at 02:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

I also was thinking of installing windows 7 on my old xp but guess it's not a good idea after reading this thread.

Grr's suggestion is a good one --fresh XP install-- OR you could turn it into a Ubuntu machine. All depends on what you want to do.

RE Windows versions, there's the "required minimum", the "enough to comfortably run a couple of apps" and then the "sweet spot."

I ran XP on 512 MB for quite a while, but I had to watch what I had running in the background and what I had open to prevent swapping to virtual memory.

Currently I have a machine with 1.5 GB.

To my mind 1 GB is the sweet spot for XP, just enough for a security suite, a browser with multiple tabs open and running another app with some free memory still left over.

My guesstimate for Win7 -- given the way I like to work -- 32 bit = 4 GB & 64 bit == 6 GB (on Win7 I want to be running VMs comfortably too). But that's just my preferences. Almost everyone can get by, with much less RAM.

There's a reason for the rule of thumb I've seen on several tech blogs: which edition of Win7, 32 or 64 bit? ==> 2 GB or less = 32 bit, 3 GB+ = 64 bit.