How much RAM does Windows 7 really need?

[newtekie1]

Well, i thought that heat is the reason. Because once i've disabled Aero Glass and enhanced the CPU cooler (added BGA heatsinks inside Aspire One CPU cooler), it worked much better and connection dropped only once. Not ideal, but still much much better.

If anyone else manages to get any other solid solution for this, i'd be happy to hear it (if it's not heat).

I haven't had any issues with the wireless on my netbook, but I have had problems with the wired connection on my main desktop. Seems to be a common problem with nVidia boards. I had to disable recieving side scaling under the properties for my network adaptor in device manager.

Maybe there is something similar with some wireless connections.

windows 7 uses about the same amount of ram as vista.

for any pc my general rule is 1gb ram per core or hyper threaded virtual core for xp/vista/7. it might sound a lot but when i was running my bionc client with 4 tasks on my atom 330 dual core with hyper threading for 4 virtual core it used up the 2gb ram all the time because of the 4 threads using just over 500mb ram each then ground to a halt.


as for cpu's 7 is a little sluggish on an intel atom 1.6ghz single core and runs fine on any dual core cpu (inc atom) and any athlon 64 up or pentium 4/M up.

It doesn't really seem all that sluggish to me really on my single core atom netbook, but I do have 2GB of RAM. I'm actually quite impressed with Win7 performance on lower end systems.

 

[JTS]

This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:


96MB

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can

 

[Jstn7477]

i keep hearing a lot about windows 7 dropping wireless connections, but haven't found any solid info on it

I've seemingly had this issue with my modern (Core 2 Duo) laptop's wireless. I don't really use laptops anymore and the laptop has a dual-core Intel and NVIDIA graphics, so I installed it in my bathroom under the sink where it runs 24/7 folding/crunching (and using my wireless to download WUs) and not bothering me. Every few days it seems that I will check on the laptop and my wireless connection will be at "limited or no connectivity" and it only seems to be fixed by rebooting the laptop or (rarely) power cycling the router (as my iPod will still be working fine on WiFi most of the time) Still dunno if it is hardware or software (using Intel 4965AGN in laptop and Netgear WNR3500 N router, which I dropped down to G because my hardware revision sucks and drops all the time on N mode and WPA2).

 

[A Cheese Danish]

This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:
View attachment 30799

96MB

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can

That is badassary! Personally wouldn't waste my time with that, but that is awesome nonetheless

 

[Jstn7477]

This is the lowest CPU/RAM I've seen someone install Seven on:
View attachment 30799

96MB

Why? The simple man answer is - because we can

Reminds me of when I installed Windows 2000 Pro on a 486DX 66, 48MB FPM RAM, 500MB HDD, 256KB VGA card and 0KB L2 cache ram because my board was retarded and would either run lots of RAM and no cache chips or little amouts of RAM and 64KB cache. Man did that suck.

 

[somebody]

I get the impression that with Vista the people at MS envisaged computers with high amounts of RAM so they were not very conservative of how they used it. Windows Seven seems to have done a better job with memory management.

IIRC Windows 7 checks that 512MB, or somewhere around there, is available before going ahead with installing so some messing around would be required for machines with less than this amount.

With the older HW I would guess less drivers are needed to get it up and running so this would favour the older machines with small memory.

Using a virtual machine and its basic emulated HW, 92MB seems doable for using IE and very basic software. With safe-mode and it's reduced driver list 48MB gets to the desktop, 53MB if networking is required.

IMHO though, I think you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to operate Windows 7 at such low levels.

 

[Mussels]

IMHO though, I think you'd have to be pretty desperate to want to operate Windows 7 at such low levels.

true, but its handy to know should you have to RMA your ram and buy something for the interim

 

[lemonadesoda]

Pointless thread. Who runs Windows but NO APPLICATIONS???

Windows may not need much but your programmes need some. Bet you couldn't even load Firefox

Not pointless, just maybe missing some important aspects: like running a basic set of applications.

I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something. I'm not sure that a virtualized OS has exactly the same footprint as an on-the-metal installation. Could be wrong... I've only VMwared Windows onto OSX. But in that instance, the Windows footprint was a lot smaller than on a bare install.

I agree with vaiopup... the analysis would be better if newteckie had established what the "working criteria" are, e.g. Office XP, ethernet connection, IE, and printer. Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.

At a single stick of 256MB, loss of dual channel, on an older machine, I'm sure Win7 is a no-go in any practical sense.

W2K3 works quite happily in 256MB on a P3 laptop incl. MS office. But it is at the tipping point... If W2K3 can do it, I'm sure W7 can nearly do it, so I'm sure you would be good to go with 512MB.

 

[Deleted member 3]

From what I understand a lot of legacy support was dropped in 7 > smaller core, so if you take out all useless features with vlite/manually it probably boots on less.

 

[wolf]

Good writeup newtekie, and I think I know why they still say 1gb is minimum, aside from the obvious lack of ram to store application data blah blah blah in.

Ive tried to install 64 bit on a machine with 1 gb, BABOW no dice, it literlaly stops and saus NO, YOU NEED 2 GB, which is min for 64 bit, I imagine with 32 bit, if you have less than 1024mb total, it will stop you at the install screen and say a big NO.

other than that, good testing man, and funny thread, informative, and I got a laugh from the BSOD pic, it was going so well!

hey with you netbook, hows it run? I've installed 7 32 bit on a eee 1000H with 2gb ram and it runs friggen sweetly, much better than I expected, aero and all, I was even playing an episode (0ver wireless), and windows+tab'ing (with many screens open including net) and the video was still playing flawlessly in win+tab.

hats off to M$ on this one rly.

 

[somebody]

I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something.

It's missing a lot , that's what makes it a good candidate for low memory. I believe my laptop being just over a year old has too much hardware to be able to run natively at such low memory but then recent gear tends to have a fair bit more RAM to start with. The virtual machine was set up for just very basic stuff including audio and internet. It's probably a bit too simple but I wanted something closer to an older system.

Notice how it's using 300MB+ of swap space or pagefile to get it all working. I can't help thinking the virtual machine was caching some of the virtual drive as it seemed to run a lot quicker than I would have expected or maybe I just underestimated it.

Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.

No real need to do it that way. You can copy the configuration using BCDEdit and call it something like "Testing low RAM" then use the 'truncatememory' option to limit the memory. Same effect.

From what I understand a lot of legacy support was dropped in 7 > smaller core, so if you take out all useless features with vlite/manually it probably boots on less.

I think you might be right. I did download vlite but sorta lost interest when it asked to download and install a 1.3GB file Still, I'm running Vista to, so it might be a good idea for me to take a look sometime. TBH though Vista hasn't given me any problems but then I've never tried it with less than 2-4GB of RAM.

 

[newtekie1]

Not pointless, just maybe missing some important aspects: like running a basic set of applications.

I also wonder if the VIRTUALIZED test might be missing something. I'm not sure that a virtualized OS has exactly the same footprint as an on-the-metal installation. Could be wrong... I've only VMwared Windows onto OSX. But in that instance, the Windows footprint was a lot smaller than on a bare install.

I agree with vaiopup... the analysis would be better if newteckie had established what the "working criteria" are, e.g. Office XP, ethernet connection, IE, and printer. Perhaps someone here has Win7 installed on a machine populated with 256MB sticks... and can do a chip pull and see what happens.

At a single stick of 256MB, loss of dual channel, on an older machine, I'm sure Win7 is a no-go in any practical sense.

W2K3 works quite happily in 256MB on a P3 laptop incl. MS office. But it is at the tipping point... If W2K3 can do it, I'm sure W7 can nearly do it, so I'm sure you would be good to go with 512MB.

This wasn't a usability test, simpley a test to see what the minimum required to boot with was.

In terms of usability, I've already gone over that. Though I personally wouldn't want to use it with any less than 1GB, 2GB preferred. At 256MB, it was extremely sluggish with openning programs, though I wonder if this is one of those instances where readyboost would actually show a drastic improvement...

A virtualized machine has the same footprint as Win7 installed on a real machine, as far as Win7 knows, it is installed on a real machine, so there would be no reason for it to have a smaller footprint.

Good writeup newtekie, and I think I know why they still say 1gb is minimum, aside from the obvious lack of ram to store application data blah blah blah in.

Ive tried to install 64 bit on a machine with 1 gb, BABOW no dice, it literlaly stops and saus NO, YOU NEED 2 GB, which is min for 64 bit, I imagine with 32 bit, if you have less than 1024mb total, it will stop you at the install screen and say a big NO.

other than that, good testing man, and funny thread, informative, and I got a laugh from the BSOD pic, it was going so well!

hey with you netbook, hows it run? I've installed 7 32 bit on a eee 1000H with 2gb ram and it runs friggen sweetly, much better than I expected, aero and all, I was even playing an episode (0ver wireless), and windows+tab'ing (with many screens open including net) and the video was still playing flawlessly in win+tab.

hats off to M$ on this one rly.

My netbook runs great, I was very surprised at how it ran. The best thing was that it found almost all the drivers, and the special ASUS utilities actually worked(Super Hybrid Engine and hot keys), unlike in Vista.

 

[wolf]

My netbook runs great, I was very surprised at how it ran. The best thing was that it found almost all the drivers, and the special ASUS utilities actually worked(Super Hybrid Engine and hot keys), unlike in Vista.

the lack of need for driver install is yet another thing that blew me away, they really have a gem on their hands this time.

 

[lemonadesoda]

A virtualized machine has the same footprint as Win7 installed on a real machine, as far as Win7 knows, it is installed on a real machine, so there would be no reason for it to have a smaller footprint.

That's not my experience. A VM application on the host provides passthrough drivers for the guest install. That also makes the guest virtual machine portable. You dont install raw OEM graphics, audio, network, usb drivers "into" the guest. The guest is therefore smaller than a bare metal.

 

[Mussels]

I think you might be right. I did download vlite but sorta lost interest when it asked to download and install a 1.3GB file

yeah, MS wont let them use the .dll anymore, so they link you to a 1.3GB MS redist to get it.

you can just google for the missing .dll, download it and stick it in the folder and it works just fine

 

[i789]

win7 cant run on 128mb ram, definitely not as good as win98

 

[Mussels]

win7 cant run on 128mb ram, definitely not as good as win98

i always liked windows 2000 on low ram systems

 

[mastrdrver]

I've got my sisters old laptop she got new in like '07. Turion 1.6ghz, 6150 geforce, 1gb memory, and 80gb hard drive.

Installed 7 RC x64 and has been running without problems for about a month now. I just use it to cruise the internet. It's kind of clunky from what I'm use to from my i7 system. Trying to find a 2x2gb memory setup so help but I can't believe its so hard to find any deals on 2x2gb ddr2 sodimms. I usually run in the 80%+ memory usage and have aero on. I have 1 sidebar app running to show my battery life and norton security and xfire that load at startup. Very minimal things running to help internet cruising smooth out. For now, I'm living with throwing in my flash drive and use it as ready boost as it does help out quite a lot.

What's really nice is if I have the laptop on for a while, my sidebar app will slowly show more and more system memory available. I've had 7 running on as little as ~500mb of memory when just sitting idle on the desktop with all aforementioned apps running in the background.

I tried to run Vista on 1gb on my old Q9400 desktop and it just choked making it past start up telling me it could load this program because it had run out of memory space. 7 is just a massive improvement in memory management compared to Vista.

 

[newtekie1]

That's not my experience. A VM application on the host provides passthrough drivers for the guest install. That also makes the guest virtual machine portable. You dont install raw OEM graphics, audio, network, usb drivers "into" the guest. The guest is therefore smaller than a bare metal.

That isn't the case, the OS still has the drivers installed, drivers are not "pass through". The virtual machine has virtual hardware that the Guest OS installs driver for.

It is portable because the hardware is the same on every VMWare virtual machine.

 

[Mussels]

That isn't the case, the OS still has the drivers installed, drivers are not "pass through". The virtual machine has virtual hardware that the Guest OS installs driver for.

It is portable because the hardware is the same on every VMWare virtual machine.

the virtual drivers would still be 'lighter' ram wise (no tray applets, very minimal by design) so his point has some merit - just not as much as he made out.

 

[newtekie1]

the virtual drivers would still be 'lighter' ram wise (no tray applets, very minimal by design) so his point has some merit - just not as much as he made out.

Not really, the same would apply to something like my netbook, where all the drivers were installed by Win7 by default. There are no tray apps accociated with those either. So the footprint on machines such as my netbook should be extremely close to those of a virtual machine.

And if you install the device drivers manually through device manager you avoid all the extra bloat, which is usually what I do in low RAM machines, even if I'm installing XP.

 

[Mussels]

Not really, the same would apply to something like my netbook, where all the drivers were installed by Win7 by default. There are no tray apps accociated with those either. So the footprint on machines such as my netbook should be extremely close to those of a virtual machine.

And if you install the device drivers manually through device manager you avoid all the extra bloat, which is usually what I do in low RAM machines, even if I'm installing XP.

thats a fair point. they're about the same as drivers that come with the OS, bloat wise.