Windows XP & RAM

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Guest

I was perusing some used PC's on ebay and many sellers claimed to have
Windows XP installed on computers with only 128MB of RAM - is this possible
and if so what type of performance would I expect?
 
Phillies

It will run, but is slow and doesn't support multi-tasking too well.. XP eye
candy is out of the question..

I would also be wary of the legality of the OS on these computers..
 
Phillies said:
I was perusing some used PC's on ebay and many sellers claimed to have
Windows XP installed on computers with only 128MB of RAM - is this
possible
Click to expand...


Certainly. The official minimum is 64MB.

...and if so what type of performance would I expect?
Click to expand...


Terrible. How much RAM you need depends on what apps you run, but almost
everyone needs at least 256MB to begin to approach decent performance.
 
Phillies said:
I was perusing some used PC's on ebay and many sellers claimed to have
Windows XP installed on computers with only 128MB of RAM - is this possible
and if so what type of performance would I expect?
Click to expand...



Yes, it's possible. As for performance, the word "glacial" comes to
mind, if the computer doesn't have a CPU of at least 500 MHz along with
at least 256 Mb of RAM.

Acceptable performance is, of course, a matter of personal opinion
and depends entirely upon what *you* expect to do with your computer. If
all you want to do is play WinXP's built-in games, send and receive
simple emails, browse the Internet (while avoiding the more "ornamental"
web sites) etc., such a machine will easily meet your needs. If,
however, you plan to take advantage of WinXP's multimedia capabilities,
play graphic-intensive games, or do advanced word or data processing,
such a machine would probably be woefully inadequate.

If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very
slow, but it might usable for simple word processing, email,
web-browsing, etc. It won't be any good for graphics-intensive
applications, and most newer games. (During the public preview period,
I tested WinXP on a 500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM, and it was much
slower than I like.)

To help improve WinXP's performance on older machines:

1) Right-click the Task Bar > Properties > Start Menu, ensure "Classic
Start menu" is selected.

2) Right-click an empty spot on the Desktop > Properties > Themes >
select "Windows Classic."

3) Right-click My Computer > Properties > Performance > Settings >
Visual Effects, ensure "Adjust for best performance" is selected.



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