Windows 8 System Requirements Same as Windows 7’s

[win7holic]

Windows 8 will not be a hardware hog, but quite to contrary in fact, it will be designed to play nice with existing systems today, the hardware capable of running Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

It used to be that major new iteration of Windows evolved at the same pace as the hardware universe, so system requirements would suffer dramatic increases from version to version.

Microsoft broke the mold with Windows 7, and it’s still broken as the company is readying Windows 8.

“Windows 8 won’t require any more hardware oomph - memory, disk space graphics, etc. - than Windows 7,” revealed Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows and Windows Live Division earlier this week at the D9 conference.

Lee Stott, Academic Evangelist at Microsoft UK, responsible for Faculty Connection and MSDNAA within the UK also confirmed this piece of information:

“Windows 8 will not require any specific enhancement to hardware in terms of memory, disk space, CPU than Windows 7 and exciting for the UK Academic space is Windows 8 will run on Intel, AMD and ARM based chips.”

Here are the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7, just to get an idea of what it will take to run Windows 8:

“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.”

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[Vextor]

I like this news as I can just put Win 8 on this machine (the one I'm typing on if you haven't guessed yet) and not have any worries. However, after the new demo I fear Windows 8 will become too focused on tablets and ignore the desktop and laptop community, who want an operating system like Windows 7 that is friendly to the mouse and keyboard. Windows 8's tiled interface could make it very hard to actually use with a mouse or keyboard, forcing people to either use tablets or touch-screen monitors (on desktops). Tablets are still not powerful enough for daily use. Most tablets barely get over 1GB RAM and dual-core processors (at 1.00GHz). If tablets get more powerful, I will be happy to use them, but for now, with the prices as well, Windows 8 seems like a big failure.

Also, if it's tablet based, where would the USB go? Where would the CD/DVD drive go? And would Windows 8 now support phones? There are so many reasons to go over I wouldn't be able to post them here.

 

[Tom172]

To quote Microsoft:

We also showed effortless movement between existing Windows programs and new Windows 8 apps,” said Larson-Green. “The full capabilities of Windows continue to be available to you, including the Windows Explorer and Desktop, as does compatibility with all Windows 7 PCs, software and peripherals.

I don't think there's anything to worry about bbbbweb. It will be a flexible OS, able to adapt to different hardware.


Great to see that Microsoft is keeping hardware requirements as low as possible.

 

[jamescv7]

Nice so as you have minimum requirements then you can install WIndows 8 with no problems and ease.

 

[Jack]

Very good news!!I was convinced that Microsoft will raise the system requirements for Windows 8.....glad to see that I was wrong.

 

[win7holic]

Very good news!!I was convinced that Microsoft will raise the system requirements for Windows 8.....glad to see that I was wrong.

yep
i thought like you too jack
and.. i'll prepare new system.. for it, because i don't want dual boot

 

[acuariano]

sounds like a windows 7 with makeup..and wonder how much?