Windows 7 Review | Windows 7 Features and System Requirements
I’m so excited that Windows 7 is out but before actually formatting one of my hard drives for the new OS, let’s see Windows 7′s minimum system requirements:
- 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
Windows 7 Professional Sample Photo of the Installer
With these system requirements, we can safely say that PCs purchased 3 years ago can upgrade to the new OS. I even saw on YouTube some people bragging about Windows 7 features that it can be installed on really old PCs without significant problems. Great if that is the case!
However, there are additional Windows 7 requirements to be able to use certain features:
- Internet access
- Depending on resolution, video playback may require additional memory and advanced graphics hardware and some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance
- For some Windows Media Center functionality a TV tuner and additional hardware may be required
- Windows Touch and Tablet PCs require specific hardware
- HomeGroup requires a network and PCs running Windows 7
- DVD/CD authoring requires a compatible optical drive
- BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
- BitLocker To Go requires a USB flash drive
- Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V turned on
- Music and sound require audio output
Windows 7 is a long way from being perfect and some even say that they have to wait for Windows 7 SP1 to be available for them to upgrade, but it’s not a much needed upgrade if you’re happy with XP. But I think a Windows 7 upgrade is really inevitable now or in the very near future.
Why is this review of Windows 7 important to us? As a Windows XP user for many years, I tried Vista but switched back to XP after only 30 minutes of trying Vista. I found Vista to be a good OS but there is something in Vista that I really don’t like. The annoying permission request every time a new software is beings installed and I find it so weird that you have to grant permission on almost everything that you execute on your PC. Plus a myriad of issues on some of my devices like TV tuner and web cam. I found Vista a memory hog and loads a lot of processes reducing my Quad Core CPU’s performance considerably. Even RAM usage is terribly high. I soon realized that I needed to upgrade my PC just to accommodate Vista. Finally, we found a huge number of PC or Video Games Compatible Under Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate that really made us happy during the first few hours after installation. We were of course a bit bothered at first if our games installed are compatible with this operating system. Luckily, all of them did run without a glitch.
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