Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | September 13, 2011, 10:58am PDT

Summary: Seems like Microsoft’s taken those bloatware claims to heart and has actually been working hard to minimize the system requirements footprint of the OS.

Lots of interesting stuff coming out from Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference. One thing that struck me - how much bloat Microsoft has removed from the OS.

According to Microsoft, Windows 8 will be able to run on systems fitted with Atom CPUs and as little as 1GB of RAM. Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s president for the Windows and Windows Live divisions, said that even an ageing Lenovo S10 (a mini-notebook from 2008) would have enough grunt to run Windows 8 and that the new OS would run better than Windows 7 on the system - though that’s not saying much.

Also on display were some interesting numbers comparing fresh installs of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Windows 7 Preview Release

RAM usage: 540MB
34 processes

Windows 7 SP1

RAM usage - 404MB
32 processes

Windows 8 Preview

RAM usage - 281MB
29 processes

Seems like Microsoft’s taken those bloatware claims to heart and has actually been working hard to minimize the system requirements footprint of the OS.

Good work!

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Atom, Microsoft Windows 8, CPU, Conference, RAM, Microsoft Windows, Memory, Processors, Operating Systems, Software, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

mswift@... 4th Jan

@DeRSSS

My I-5 desktop with a 7200RPM drive takes about 30 seconds to reboot and it is starting two instances of SQL Server.

Something is terribly wrong with your computer.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

Return_of_the_jedi Updated - 13th Sep

As I read this, I'm thinking, this IS 2011. And I've been doing this with Linux since, I don't even remember.

PS. It's like a come soon movie I've seen before.

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You sound like you missed the point. Maybe AKH did as well.

Johnny Vegas 13th Sep

The point was relative improvment. Im sure these specs arent either the recommended minimums, which are likely higher, or the absolute minimums, which are likely much lower. I have an old old old toshiba laptop with only 32M of RAM thats running Windows Server. Works fine for me...

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

coachclothing 13th Sep

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

audidiablo 13th Sep

@Return_of_the_jedi

Glad to know you're now aware of the year we are presently in.

I'm taking it you develop your own distro of Linux then. I'm not sure what you're doing on a OS level for an entire OS (e.g. Ubuntu) for everyone to benefit from. Microsoft is doing this for their operating system for everyone to benefit.

If you've been doing things and you don't remember... Did you really do anything in the first place?

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

jgm@... Updated - 13th Sep

@audidiablo I'm really not sure what you're on about. Microsoft isn't doing this for their operating system "for everyone to benefit". They're doing this to benefit those who will pay them $150-$250 for it.

Windows 8 is shaping up to be a very interesting release - and I say that as someone who abandoned Windows XP for OpenSUSE Linux about 14 months ago. In many ways it seems to be looking at what Linux is offering and duplicating it - Lower system requirements? Check. A single dialog that lets you manage all ongoing copy processes (already present in Linux's KDE desktop)? Check. The ability to mount ISOs without 3rd party tools? Check. The ability to update your programs from one source (what I hope the Win8 "app store" can be used for)? Check. The ability to have a conventional and a touch/tablet interface? (With the change of one menu option in KDE I can switch between a conventional program launcher/task bar interface and a touch-oriented large icon full screen interface with tabs) Check. The use of HTML5 and Javascript (the core behind KDE's "plasma" widgets and an increasing portion of its desktop)? Check. PDF viewing support? Check. The ability to run on ARM? (Some Linux distros, and I'm suspecting OpenSUSE will too before Win8 ships)? Check. Many of the rumored features also mirror what we see in Linux....

"Your Linux Advocate" may throw a fit at this suggestion, but I think Windows 8 will be giving the major Linux desktops a run for their money. That said, I'm still immensely happy that I'll have all of these features at least two years sooner for free. I'll evaluate it and decide if I want to switch back or not when it comes out. I suspect it won't have achieved full feature parity (let alone surpassing) yet though - I saw a picture of the new file explorer and my first view of what a "ribbon interface" looks like and seriously thought it was someone's photoshopped joke. When I upgrade in November my file manager is gaining the ability to directly manage the git version control system, and Windows 8's file manager is "gaining" a UI that looks like a rapid application development tool threw up on File Explorer. No sign that even Windows 8's file explorer will be multi-tab or multi-pane yet, either. Microsoft's Linux *killer* may need to wait until Windows 9.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

western21 Updated - 9th Nov

@audidiablo
Great article. Thanks for the great information about CPUs and RAMS- I will take into consideration for my next purchase.

PR7 backlinks

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

Masari.Jones 13th Sep

@Return_of_the_jedi The fact the Microsoft is finally trying to cleanup, streamline and minimize the OS footprint is great to hear. It's been a long time coming, and I'm looking forward to trying out Windows 8 when it becomes available to developers/beta testers.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

gomigomijunk 13th Sep

@Masari.Jones You are in luck. Windows 8 developer preview is available now.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

bobiroc 13th Sep

@Return_of_the_jedi

That's great but in the meantime the rest of the world must get things done and the software businesses, schools, and users need to use to do their jobs does not run on linux. You can make an OS or program run with a small footprint but making it usable to the people and the software they want/need to use is a different story.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

jgm@... 13th Sep

@bobiroc Actually, the software businesses, schools and users need to use to do their jobs generally does run on Linux - this isn't 1994. As regards making it usable, as I've said before, Windows 8's confirmed and rumored features list (copy dialog, iso mounting, virtual hard disk mounting, touch interface, live USB option, integrated PDF reader, "app store", HTML5 + javascript desktop apps, etc.) reads like a list of all of the features present in Linux for years but not in Windows. I'm excited about Windows 8, but so far it's not offering anything I didn't gain by switching my desktop to openSUSE in 2010.

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RE: Actually

bobiroc 13th Sep

@jgm@...

Really? I work for a school and when it came to update our Student Management System, Human Resources management system, and business/payroll management systems the choices of linux compatible systems that were approved by the state were non-existent. Not to mention our students need to learn the software they are going to use in college and when they get a job in the real world which includes (but not limited to) Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, AutoCAD, and numerous other titles that are not Linux compatible.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

jgm@... 13th Sep

@bobiroc I don't know what process is used by your state to approve software, but the choices for these types of software certainly isn't nonexistent, including some of the biggest software such as Peoplesoft and SAP HR, with other options being WaypointHR, OrangeHRM, ICeHRM, Open Applicant and LATRIX for HR, FreeSMS "a teacher and student management system providing marketing, registration, course management, attendance and a student evaluation system", ATutor for course management, Koha, an integrated library system in use in over 1000 libraries, etc. Whatever your state's situation, it's not for lack of high quality software being employed by schools and universities worldwide and online (i.e. Moodle, which powers many schools' online course offerings).

You can't teach students today what they're going to be using in several years' time; the pace of technology doesn't allow that. Any of us who learned Lotus 1-2-3 or Wordperfect (or Wordstar happy

) will tell you that. Same with programming. You teach the fundamental skills and the reasoning ability that will allow someone to learn any piece of software they need to use or program in any language that becomes popular/useful. That's the whole point behind "teaching languages" like Pascal that were designed specifically to communicate good programming practices and programming concepts.

I stick with my original conclusion that these are standard tropes that are quite outdated. From Firefox to Chrome to Flash to OpenOffice to C to C++ to C# and .Net (Mono) to R to MySQL to PostgreSQL to SQLite to Firebird to Google Earth to RapidMiner (one of the most widely used data mining applications) to Java to VLC to VirtualBox to DropBox to the GIMP to Octave and Scilab, the most popular and commonly used software today is available for the Linux platform, and students are as likely to encounter (and more likely to afford) programs such as Octave and Maxima and the GIMP and OpenOffice and WEKA as they are MathCad and Photoshop and Microsoft Office and SPSS.

In 1999 I had this exchange with a Linux advocate after buying, trying and uninstalling Caldera Linux:
Him: "There's 6000 Linux applications!"
Me: "Yeah, and 5000 of them are text editors!"

It's quite a different world today and I was shocked when I began my biannual trying and (up until that point) uninstalling of Linux. The fact alone that I could plug in an MTP music player and sync effortlessly was something I hadn't thought could ever happen. Nowadays Linux gained not only USB3 but even Microsoft Kinnect support in the kernel before Windows or OSX! My "test" of Linux resulted in using the "test" install for more than a year without booting into Windows and I finally formally migrated everything to Linux and removed my NTFS partitions last weekend. If you gave it a serious examination I think you'll be quite surprised and how incredibly rapidly its matured into a modern and capable desktop OS.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

qjqqyy 14th Sep

@bobiroc
vital financial infrastructure such as stock exchanges and other mission critical infrastructure runs on linux due to its reliability, people who know how to use linux naturally get those jobs.

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Yeah, right.

terry flores 13th Sep

I'm sorry, but every claim that Microsoft has ever made about lighter/faster/better has been fantasy. I have a notebook that has 5 times the resources of the one I had 5 years ago, but it takes twice as long to boot Windows 7, open a spreadsheet, or copy files from one place to the other. WHY? Windows.

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If I would want to make a full reboot now, then my Windows 7 system with ..

DeRSSS 13th Sep

@terry flores: ... 4 GB RAM would take seven minutes to do so. Of course, this is not only Microsoft's fault, but, seriously, I do not not run huge projects or databases in the background and do not have the likes of Crysis-3 game in start-up to make everything soo painfully slow.

However, there is probability that Windows 8 might be better, since Windows 7 *is* better than Vista. Lets wait and see.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

audidiablo 13th Sep

@DeRSSS

I would look into removing some junk you've installed or have installed. My 2GB PC running Windows 7 x86 full reboots in about a minute and thirty seconds. You must really be doing something wrong or booting it on a Mac.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

x I'm tc 13th Sep

@DeRSSS
My totally loaded up Windows 7 laptop which came with Vista but which I did an in-place upgrade to 7 on and which has a system tray of full of background programs that start at launch that stretches a third of the way across my full HD screen and which also only has 4 GB of RAM and by the way I have never defragged (etc., etc., etc.) has a total boot time of about a minute, maybe two until it feels fully responsive.

You're doing something wrong.

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I talked about 'restart' time, not 'boot' time; it takes a lot to finish ..

DeRSSS 14th Sep

@audidiablo: ... the session.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

mswift@... 4th Jan

@DeRSSS

My I-5 desktop with a 7200RPM drive takes about 30 seconds to reboot and it is starting two instances of SQL Server.

Something is terribly wrong with your computer.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

audidiablo 13th Sep

@terry flores

And fantasy is now a reality. Windows 7 is fast as is Office 2010. I can boot my PC and be in an Excel spreadsheet in less than a minute. I know if I tried that 5 years ago I would be looking at about 5 minutes.

Have you ever taken into consideration the issue may not be your PC but more so what you've done to your PC?

Lastly I've been running Windows 8 and it is about two to three times faster than Windows 7 on the same machine. I'm looking forward to the developers build tonight which is more complete. Windows 8 is amazing and will be even more so when the public is able to get their hands on it! grin

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

dhmccoy 13th Sep

@audidiablo

Are you running an SSD?

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

partman1969@... Updated - 14th Sep

@audidiablo
If boot were an issue, I'll use my MacBook Pro up and crisp in under 15 seconds, however I don't care of boot times only performance. I wish Windows 8 could breathe more life into some of my older AMD and socket 478 boards. I spent a lot when I gamed and haven't the heart to part with some of my modded gear.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

whatagenda 13th Sep

@terry flores

It probably smells OSX on your hands ...

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

jhammackHTH 13th Sep

@terry flores Outright lie.

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Wow. I never had problems like that. But then again

William Farrell 13th Sep

@terry flores
it could be your custom configuration as you always seem to be one of the few people here that continually have all these Windows problems.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

windozefreak 13th Sep

@terry flores
Using a Toshiba netbook NB505, Win7 starter, and boots up in 30 seconds. I did add an extra gb ram to get to 2gb. Don't know what your problem is???

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

Pete "athynz" Athens 13th Sep

@terry flores Interesting - I've had a completely different experience on my Dell XPS dual core 2.8Ghx/ 2.8Ghz with 3GB ram which came with Windows XP Home Premium preinstalled. I upgraded it to Windows 7 and it seems to start up faster than it did with XP. This is without any sort of upgrade to the hardware with the exception of adding a 2TB external hard drive. Copying files, running spreadsheets go roughly the same amount of time with 7 as with XP.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

partman1969@... 14th Sep

@Pete "athynz" Athens
I like Windows 7, and yes I agree it should make any prior OS seem slow by comparison.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

mswift@... 13th Sep

@terry flores
I've been running Win 7-32 Ultimate on an Atom since the first beta release. It runs much better than XP ever did. I recently upped it to 1.5GB and swapped in a SSD. Now sleep takes about 2 -3 seconds going down or up. I'm ordering a TouchSmart today to be able to run Windows 8 beta in about a month.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

bobiroc 13th Sep

@terry flores

Sounds like there is something else wrong with that notebook and Windows is not the problem.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

zaghy2zy 13th Sep

@terry flores

ah I see your problem... it's a rare case of User Failure. Usually it's hard to fix since the problem is persistent and that it usually goes back no matter how hard and how many times you fix it.

Don't worry, maybe someday the IT people can fix it. BUt then again, maybe not.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

JustCallMeBC 13th Sep

Hah, @terry flores is right and the rest of you yahoos are wrong. There is no such thing as a Windows PC that doesn't slow down and which also doesn't need periodic memory upgrades to keep it from becoming unusably slow -- aside from period wipes and reinstalls. Defragging and running things like CCleaner only delays the inevitable.

And even in the unlikely event that Microsoft finally, belatedly did manage to reduce the resource footprint of Win8 a substantial degree, it's still too little and far, far too late.

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RE: Windows Slow Downs

bobiroc 14th Sep

@JustCallMeBC

Well then the computers I use personally and at work must be exceptions then. Personally my last 3 computers I built and the laptops I have used never slowed down and while I did manually defrag on XP that is not necessary in Vista and 7 because it is done automatically. If a computer does slow down it is usually because of neglect or some other failure. I mean a computer can only take so much of toolbars being installed and little apps installed and uninstalled that have poor installers that do not clean up after themselves. Heaven forbid if you fill up the hard drive so it cannot properly run the temp and page files. Been running Windows 7 for nearly 2 years and the computer rarely is rebooted and it runs just as fast as the day I built it and set it up. Very little maintenance required.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

mswift@... 4th Jan

@terry flores

My Acer Aspire one with an Atom running win 7-32 Ultimate comes up from sleep in 3 seconds and from hibernation in 7 and from cold start in under 30 seconds. That is what happened when I swapped the hard drive for a cheap SSD.

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Key lesson for a company is not to listen only to fanboys

voltrarian Updated - 13th Sep

Hopefully, Microsoft listened to complaints and took heed.
If Microsoft only listened to its fanboys, and dismissed contructive criticisms about bloat, UI annoyances, and slowness, then it would be severely unprepared to meet competition, and changing consumer computing trends.

Frankly, smaller footprint is the better matched strategy for consumer trends. And IMO, the next near trend will be the ultraportable convertible laptop with long battery life. When the hardware is ready, consumers will prefer 2 lb laptops with touchscreens (w/video out & usb), at affordable price points. Consumers will ditch the heavy laptop & the tablet will remain a 10% device, and most will go for the ultralight convertible laptop, -- except for the cutting edge games, office pc, & workstation uses. Most common would probably be 2 computing devices for personal use -- ultralight & smartphone, and the desktop at work.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

windozefreak 13th Sep

@voltrarian
No, no, nooooooo! We "fanboys" offer constructive criticism and not overblow every little peanut, and we do not harbor hatred for all things Microsoft. Thats the difference!!!

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

partman1969@... Updated - 14th Sep

@windozefreak
Though I like Apple, I too have not dismissed Windows since ME (Yuck) and since Windows 2000 have enjoyed both Windows and Apple operating systems. Those hatred of either operating systems are the bane of ZDnet.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

mswift@... 13th Sep

@voltrarian
The only big laptops I see traveling anymore are those really big white Apple jobs.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

timotim 13th Sep

You forgot, and do it better than Windows 7 did.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

Darkninja962@... 13th Sep

I have a Windows 7 machine with these specs running right now. I don't understand the big deal about all this.

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Do more with less

DOSlover 13th Sep

As with everything else in life, efficiency improvements are to be applauded. The real test would be to see how low it can go?

I recall using a Pentium 60 with 64 MB RAM and managing to run NT5 (RTM as Windows 2000). I would like to see Microsoft return to the lean, restrictive performance of DOS, where anything more than 640 KB would fail.

Win8 might be enough to get me to move from XP, otherwise linux is looking every more appealing.

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Be realistic

thx-1138_@... Updated - 14th Sep

@DOSlover " ... I would like to see Microsoft return to the lean, restrictive performance of DOS, where anything more than 640 KB would fail. "

Are you trying to suggest a new millennium system, with advanced processing and extreme multitasking, require 640KB's of memory to run successfully?? I mean .. for real?

.. You lost me about there. This step by the W8 Team is a great departure from a traditionally memory, processor hungry / intensive OS like Windows. I suppose next you'll ask that they make it compatible with Pentium II processors or AMD Durons.

It seems there really is no pleasing some folks.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

hectorj102 Updated - 14th Sep

Deleted by author.

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

kevibdubose 14th Sep

great article, thanks

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RE: Windows 8 will run on old Atom CPUs and 1GB RAM

johncrea 16th Sep

My basic question is if Win8 will install/run on the myriad numbers of machines that came with WinXP factory installed? Driver support for older hardware devices/cards/etc??? If not, then MS is missing the bus, as there are TONS of older machines out there that are just begging for an upgrade, and if MS locks them out,what does that say about the bean counters at MS turning up their collective noses at a TON of revenue??

John