Old desktop wont run newer windows ??

A

aintgotno

New Member
Just curious, why wouldn't an older computer be able to run newer OSs. This is an ad. COMPAQ DESKTOP
Windows 95 (with license)
Intel Pentium3 700MHz
192MB RAM / 20GB Harddrive
CRT Monitor / Sound Card
No Keyboard or Mouse (Uses Standard PS/2)
WORKS!! However, will not run Modern Windows
 
That add is not completely right. Can you run windows 7 on that? Most likely. Will you get anything done on that with windows 7 on that, no.
Why? RAM. You are looking at a minuscule amount of RAM that is slow, low bandwidth, and quite frankly well past EOL date.
CPU: This is not enough for Vista/7 or 8. It is fine for XP, or any linux with a really light or no window manager.
Drivers: This is a can or worms better left sealed. You are likely looking at MX200/raedon 7000 (not HD7000), or intel 440 series graphics that is going to need a lot of searching for XP drivers and you will not find WDDM drivers for them ever (WDDM is the Vista/7/8 GPU driver frame). Asides, your Sound card may or may not work in newer OSs, and ethernet/modem drivers will be a long search.

Now to answer your real question as asked.
why wouldn't an older computer be able to run newer OSs
Click to expand...
Strait forward, it depends on if you can open your mind and learn a little. Windows, XP will likely run, but not well. Upgrade the RAM past 512MB if possible and it will be usable, but slow. You can run stripped down Linux distros on that hardware without issue at all. Something like a WMless debian or Ubuntu Server would run fine. You could likely run normal Ubuntu 10.04 or Crunchbang Statler just fine on it. I have run Statler just fine on my Dell L400 and it is nearly those specs (256MB of RAM).
 
Below is straight from Microsoft Website

Windows 7 system requirements
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver


The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Home Edition are:
Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
Sound card
Speakers or headphones


While Windows XP will run, it will not run well.
 
Going from the M$ requirements is not really the best idea. You can run well below that and still be fairly decent.
 
one of the most obvious answers is it will not run on those specs because they are old and outdated

Going from the M$ requirements is not really the best idea. You can run well below that and still be fairly decent.
Click to expand...

yes, very true i had a pc running windows 7 on 512mb of RAM not the 1gb microsoft say you need at least
 
It wouldn't even get passed the install being it would take more then 129 MB of memory plus it would not run being take LMDE for example running mate is using 190-200 MB when your doing nothing and I guarantee LMDE uses far less resources the Windows 7.
 
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