Windows 7 64bit definitely requires more memory. When a program is
compiled for 64bit, it ends up as a bigger .exe than the same
program compiled for 32bit. Do that for hundreds of .exe and .dll
files for the operating system and you end up needing more memory.
Windows 7 64bit also has \Windows\SysWOW64 which contains the
Windows 7 32bit subsystem. The 64bit and 32bit OS together are what
make the minimum required disk space for Windows 7 a total of 39Gb.
The 32bit installs required several gigabytes less, but Microsoft
does not give that kind of detail in the hardware requirements
documentation.
I compared Windows Vista 32bit memory usage against Windows 7 32bit
and the base memory usage for Windows 7 with Aero enabled was a few
megabytes more (913Mb vs 1137Mb, no users logged on) because of the
updated desktop window management system and more strict driver
requirements for Windows 7. The updated desktop window management
system causes each windowed application to use more memory, so in
the end, Windows 7 uses more memory than Windows Vista. There may
be ways in which Windows 7 allocates memory better than Vista, but
overall, it is my experience that Windows 7 uses more memory than
Vista.
4Gb is overkill (about 25% excess) for Windows 7 32bit for users
that only use one application at a time, but it isn't overkill for
Windows 7 64bit. Since a computer can and will often end up being
used by a different user, all the Windows 7 computers that I ordered
or recommended had at least 4Gb of memory.
Note that the 4Gb computer that I configured with a dedicated
graphics card had 3,325Mb total physical memory available to the
operating system (771Mb allocated to graphics or other high memory
not available in 32bit), and the 4Gb machine that I did not
configure had 3,069Mb total physical memory available (1027Mb
unavailable).
-Stefan
On 11/17/2014 16:15, David McFarlane
wrote:
[log in to unmask]"
type="cite">For the record, here at my shop at MSU I am still
running Windows Vista with a Core 2 2.5 GHz processor and 2 GB of
RAM, on a machine built from parts purchased at Digilink in town.
I use this for some heavy-duty software development as well as
normal office use, and have not felt any need to upgrade. Is
Windows 7 so different from Vista that it would require more
resources?
-- David McFarlane
At 11/14/2014 04:57 PM Friday, STeve Andre' wrote:
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
On 11/14/14 15:41, Gary Schrock wrote:
I'm kinda curious what other people
think about this issue, and where people would tend to draw
the line. As part of this sudden (and about-faced policy from
what it was a few weeks ago) deadlines on xp machines being on
the network, we're looking at the task of what to do with
what's turning out to be a *lot* of machines that are still
running xp. And while we're still early in the process of
identifying and determining what the hardware is under each of
these machines, needless to say we're already getting pushback
from faculty (some of which will give up a computer when you
can pry it from their cold, dead fingers :) ).
So basically, I'm kinda curious what people think is a
reasonable minimum machine that runs windows 7 decently enough
that it's worth the effort of upgrading from xp to windows 7.
What cpu and memory combination do people think is a
reasonable cut-off point?
Personally, I'd probably look at something like an E8400 Core
2 Duo processor machine with 4 gigs of ram as what I'd call
about the bottom end of acceptable. I wouldn't really say
it's a great machine when running win 7, but it seems to be an
adequate machine. From what I can tell, machines with this
combination tend to be in the 4 to 6 year old range (and I
have to admit, the idea of upgrading a lot of 6 year old
machines that might only last another year or so is a little
on the depressing side).
Or heck, maybe we're the only department on campus that really
has this issue of a large number of machines that need to be
dealt with, and everyone else has done better at keeping
machines newer in their departments? Personally, I found it
kinda laughable that the linked to form in the email that went
out only allows one to enter a single machine at a time,
because I'm facing numbers where that isn't exactly practical
:). (And anyone else notice that the linked form last I
checked still said that December 1st the machines would be
blocked from accessing the internet, we still haven't gotten
an answer on why that discrepancy is there and whether we
really have till Feb 1 before they're blocked from the
internet or not).
Thanks,
Gary
I think I have two Dell's running XP on faculty that are
retiring so I'm not
sure that counts.
Probably many of us have a few laptops out there using XP--I
give laptops
to people and they flee, and I don't see them for a while. ;-)
Yes, a core 2 duo with 4G is about the bottom for win7. Of
course if the
user is of the light-duty variety, they could be OK. I have a
friend with a
2.1GHz core two duo with 3G and it does work, for simple things.
As for the Dec 1st deadline, I think that means internet ->
XP won't work,
not that they are completely blocked.
--STeve Andre'
