Windows 7 on low-spec pcs

joey1211

joey1211

joey1211

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Windows 7 on low-spec

Finally persuaded management to upgrade the eight pcs still running XP.

Celeron 2.6 GHz 1.25GB
Dual Core 3GHz 2GB
Pentium IV 3GHz 1.2GB
Dual Core 2.4 GHz 2GB
Celeron 2.6 GHz 768MB
Dual Core 2.6GHz 2GB
Dual Core 2.8GHz 2GB
Celeron 2.66GHz 1GB

These are admin pcs which run Office 2003.

The plan is to upgrade the RAM to 2GB and upgrade-install 7 over XP.

The vendor where I'll be getting the upgrade licences has assured me that these pcs will happily run 7. I have no reason to doubt this as I would have been purchasing new pcs through them anyway.

So, basically, yay or nay
 
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Office 2003 is also being retired

Win 7 can run on a single core Atom n270 with 512MB RAM. It isn't pleasant, but it works!
 
d_brennen said:
Office 2003 is also being retired

Win 7 can run on a single core Atom n270 with 512MB RAM. It isn't pleasant, but it works!
Click to expand...

Runs reasonably well on my Atom netbook. It has 3GB RAM though, no way in hell I'd want to run Windows 7 on a 512mb machine!
 
I'm not sure about the Pentium IV and Celerons, maybe replace those two machines entirely (unless they are rarely used). They will run Windows 7, but it won't be very nice to use them.

The other Dual Core CPUs are all fine however, and with 2GB of RAM will run 32 bit 7 quite happily (though 64 bit may run a little slower).

You also need to upgrade from Office 2003...
 
I would arrange for the Celeron to have an acident. But the rest should be ok.

The first Win7 pcs we deloyed at my last job were ancient 3ghz Pentium Ds that were being redeployed.

As people have said, rebuilt them don't do an upgrade.

If you're using lots of scripts and group policy then have a serious think about weather you want to bother supporting 32 and 64 bit. Going 64x only will save you some head aches.
 
take the lowest and highest spec PCs, clone the HDDs, install/upgrade windows on the original HDDs. test for usability. if all is well, the rest should be fine as well. if not, just restore the original images to the HDDs and carry on as before while thinking of a new way to get those PCs replaced/upgraded to the point were you can use w7 on them
 
Might be worth getting some 4-8GB USB sticks to use as readyboost devices if they only have 2GB RAM on them - though its a bit of a contentious one, personally I've found it can be useful on older CPUs with low RAM, mechanical HDDs and Windows 7 without spending the earth on upgrading RAM, etc.

I had Windows 7 installed for a bit on one of my mini-ITX systems (Single core <2GHZ Atom based IIRC) and once the RAM was upgraded to a spare set of 4GB I had lying about it ran fine, but wasn't much fun on the original 512MB in there.
 
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If I'm not mistaken, can't 32-bit Windows use 3GB of RAM? If so, I'd be trying to use that as my maximum.

Agree with a clean installation too. I've never managed it before, but using an image built with Sysprep might save you a lot of time.
 
32bit windows will handle "upto" 4GB - how much is actually available in the OS is another matter. (Usually somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5GB depending on hardware, etc.).
 
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