Windows 8 hardware requirements

Posted Date: 03-Jun-2011	Category: Windows 8	Rating:
Author: Tony John	Member Level: Diamond	Points: 50

In this article, I will discuss the hardware requirement for windows 8. Also, I will discuss the announcement from Microsoft that system requirements for Windows 8 is pretty much similar to requirements for Windows 7.

Microsoft released Windows Vista in 2007, which was one of the mostly poorly performing operating system Microsoft ever released in the past and potentially in the future. Taking lessons from the past, Microsoft came with a new OS called "Windows 7" which was meant to fix the performance problems in Windows Vista.

I am one of many Windows users who switched Vista and then immediately rolled back to Windows XP and then patiently waited for the Windows 7. Most enterprises still run on Windows Xp or they switched Windows 7 from Xp.

Undoubtedly, Microsoft do not want to repeat the same mistake. In the current scenario, people are switching to small and low powered tablet computers and slates. A poorly performing operating system is not going to receive wide acceptance. Microsoft has very well understood this change and that is they have paid enough attention to performance in Windows 8.

Windows 8 will support a wide range of devices including slates, tablets, laptops and desktop computers. While desktops and laptops could run on high powered CPUs, tablets and other ARM based devices may run Windows 8 on very low powered CPUs.

"We have extended the trend we started with Windows 7, of keeping our system requirements either flat or reducing them over time. So Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same system requirements or lower as Windows 7"

This is a good news for the Windows users. There is no need to offer you computer to charity organizations. Kids at home will not get another PC to play games! You can continue to use your Windows 7 PC and run Windows 8 on it.

Hardware requirements for Windows 8

Microsoft has not made any official announcement on the exact system requirements to run Windows 8, other than the general statement that the hardware requirements will be similar or lower than Windows 7 hardware requirements. Here is the official hardware requirements for Windows 7:

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

There is an important point to note here. Windows 8 is expected to run a wide range of devices and machines and not just desktops/laptops. The above hardware requirements to run Windows 8 may not be applicable on other devices like tablets and slates.

In general, all modern tablets and slates offer better configuration than shown above. So, if you purchased a computer/laptop/tablet/slate in last 2 years, you may not need to buy a new computer to run Windows 8.

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