Can I update my computer to Windows 7?

Since the 22nd of October several people have asked me if they can upgrade their present computer. The short answer usually is I don't know because they haven't got an idea what the spec of their present machine is and if it is one I built, I can't remember the spec of all the machines I have built over the years.

So let's kick off this week with what Microsoft say is the minimum spec a computer must have to run Windows 7.

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

It is many a long year since I had a computer with a spec this low so I can only guess just how slowly a computer with this spec would run loading a notorious memory hog like MS Word.

So now we know what Microsoft say will run, let's have a look at what you would need to make a business orientated computer run smoothly and quickly.

• 2 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 2 GB of RAM (32-bit); 3 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of available disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

As you can see there isn't a lot of difference except a bit more memory (memory is about £20 per Gigabyte at the moment) and any computer build/bought in the past three years will have a processor (CPU) of well over 1 GHz with the one exception of some low spec laptops and netbooks.

A good rough and ready guide to upgradeability is that if your computer is already running any version of Vista then it will run Windows 7.

To show why this is here are the minimum specs for Vista compared to those for Windows 7.

	XP	Vista	Windows 7
CPU	300Mhz	1 Ghz	1 GHz
RAM	128Mb	1Gb	1Gb (2 Gb x64)
Graphics	SVGA	DX9/128Mb	DX9/WDDM1.0
HDD	1.5Gb	40Gb/15Gb Free	16Gb/20 for x64

As you can see the specs are similar except Windows 7 requires a lot less HDD space unless you need the 64 bit version which not many business users do. What you will notice if you load Windows 7 is that it runs faster and smoother than Vista ever did and with a lot less of the annoying security pauses that plagued all the versions of Vista that I tried. In my opinion, the bottom line is that Microsoft have at last developed an operating system that doesn't need a super computer to run properly and isn't bloated with services and applications that the average customer will never use. Followers of my Blog will know I have loaded it on all our computers at home and it is running just fine.

You can download this blog as a PDF here