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Windows 7 System Requirements Finalized.

Your computer should run this. System requirements for Windows 7 arenтЂ™t any great mystery, but now weтЂ™re getting a much better idea of what itтЂ™ll say on the retail box. Microsoft posted relatively modest system requirements (at least for any computer belonging to a TomтЂ™s Hardware reader) when it released the Windows 7 public beta in January and only slightly modified them for the release of yesterdayтЂ™s Release Candidate. The system requirements for the beta at the time called for: *1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor *1 GB of system memory *16 GB of available disk space *Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme) The system requirements published yesterday for the official Release Candidate are the following: *1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor *1 GB of RAM (32-bit)/2 GB of RAM (64-bit) *16 GB of available disk space (32-bit)/20 GB (64-bit) *DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or higher driver The only real changes to the system requirements since January are slightly bumped up ones for the 64-bit version, though we suspect anyone who plans to run the x64 build will have a machine thatтЂ™s way beyond the minimum (having at least 4 GB of RAM would be a good starting point). While the system requirements posted yesterday apply to the Release Candidate, Microsoft told ZDNet that they were тЂ˜finalтЂ™, though itтЂ™s unknown if there will be different requirements between different SKUs such as Starter Edition or Ultimate Edition. тЂњThe system requirements are final and not SKU-specific,тЂќ said a Microsoft spokesperson. Those who plan to run XP Mode will need at least 2 GB RAM, 15 GB of additional hard drive space and a processor that supports hardware virtualization. According to early tests, Windows 7 performs better than Windows Vista on the same hardware. "It"s been a long time since we"ve had a version of Windows that will actually run better [than the previous version] on the hardware that most customers have," Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Microsoft"s Windows product management group, said during a conference call with reporters, quoted by ComputerWorld. Windows 7 does carry with it slightly heftier system requirements than Vista does, despite it being a better performer. From one generation to the next тЂ“ and three years later тЂ“ Windows 7тЂ™s system demands does seem positively modest. For reference, Windows VistaтЂ™s system requirements are: *1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit) *512 MB of RAM (for Home Basic); 1 GB of RAM for all other versions *15 GB of available disk space *Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory (for Home Basic); 128 MB of graphics memory plus WDDM support for all other versions

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