PC retailers have spent the last few weeks gearing up in a big way for the launch of Windows  7. They're cleared out old inventory and stocked the latest PCs and notebooks in anticipation of increased demand for Windows 7-ready hardware.
But you may not need new a new PC to run Windows 7. One of the aspects of Windows 7 that has been most lauded by pre-release testers, in fact, is the new operating system's respectable performance on older hardware. And in tough economic times, that's good news.
To find out for sure how your PC might fare with Windows 7, read on.
If you're currently using a computer to run Windows Vista, and you have no complaints about performance, then that same machine will run Windows 7 like a champ. Windows 7 improves upon both the performance and the resource requirements of Vista, and the result is an operating system that feels both more zippy and more stable on identical equipment.
If you buy a new computer now, whether a desktop or a notebook, it will run Windows 7 just fine.
That goes, too, for most netbooks on the market, which typically come either with Windows XP Home Edition or some version of Linux, such as Ubuntu. A typical netbook using the latest Atom processor from Intel and possessing at least 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM typically can handle even Windows 7 Ultimate, the top-of-the-line edition of Windows 7, without issue.
But if you're still running Windows XP with aging equipment, the question of hardware requirements for Windows 7 gets a little trickier.
First, let's look at Microsoft 's official system requirements for Windows 7.
At a minimum, your computer will need a 1 GHz or faster processor, at least 1 GB of RAM for the 32-bit edition of Windows 7, or 2 GB for the 64-bit edition, 16 GB of available hard drive space, and a graphics card that's compatible with DirectX 9. Some newer games will require a graphics card that's compatible with DirectX 10.
In simpler terms, hardware that is fairly old -- say, older than four years -- but running XP well will probably still work with Windows 7. To be sure, though, you should visit Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx). (continued...)
© 2009 Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) under contract with MarketWatch. All rights reserved.
|
