Review: Proporta TurboCharger 5000 – External Emergency Charger Battery Pack
Windows 7 (and also Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008) minimum system hardware requirements are at least 512 MB of physical memory, RAM, though Microsoft officially recommends 1 GB minimum memory. As a result, the installation process does not allow setup to start when the system memory is less than 512 MB when installing Windows 7. The setup wizard will halt and force stop installation process with the following error message when attempting an installation with 256MB RAM:
“Windows detected that this computer has 256MB of RAM, but 512 MB is required for installation. Installation cannot proceed.”
Although Windows can still run at less than mandatory required RAM memory, the performance of the system will take serious hit. With ridiculously low amount of memory, Windows Boot Manager may simply fail to load and stop with an error message or a blue screen.
There are few workarounds to install Windows operating system even without 512 MB RAM:
1. Although the Windows setup process dialog message indicating at least 512 MB of RAM is required, but it will only look for available memory of around 384 MB (373 MB of RAM is workable in the case of Windows 7). Thus, end-user can easily add an additional piece of physical RAM into RAM slot to reach this threshold, or even easier in virtual machine, increase the allocated RAM slightly to match 384 MB level. 2. Increase the amount of physical or virtual RAM to 512 MB (adding memory stick) in order to fulfill setup requirement, and after the setup is complete, reduce the memory size to lower level by removing the added memory stick. 3. Install Windows 7 in another PC, with 512 MB RAM and then move the hard drive into another PC, where there are 256 MB of RAM. When the setup completes files copying and reboots for the first time, do not allow the PC to boot and turn it off. Remove the hard drive, put it in another PC (don’t forget the Windows 7 DVD as well) and boot the second PC. The setup will continue as it should and RAM limit check will be bypassed. (The method worked every time on numerous different PCs).
1. Although the Windows setup process dialog message indicating at least 512 MB of RAM is required, but it will only look for available memory of around 384 MB (373 MB of RAM is workable in the case of Windows 7). Thus, end-user can easily add an additional piece of physical RAM into RAM slot to reach this threshold, or even easier in virtual machine, increase the allocated RAM slightly to match 384 MB level.
2. Increase the amount of physical or virtual RAM to 512 MB (adding memory stick) in order to fulfill setup requirement, and after the setup is complete, reduce the memory size to lower level by removing the added memory stick.
3. Install Windows 7 in another PC, with 512 MB RAM and then move the hard drive into another PC, where there are 256 MB of RAM. When the setup completes files copying and reboots for the first time, do not allow the PC to boot and turn it off. Remove the hard drive, put it in another PC (don’t forget the Windows 7 DVD as well) and boot the second PC. The setup will continue as it should and RAM limit check will be bypassed. (The method worked every time on numerous different PCs).
In one of my cases, there was a Pentium 3 600Mhz with 512 MB SDRAM and a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz with 256 MB RDRAM. Since for the price of 2 RDRAM sticks it is possible to by a new PC, the 3rd method described above worked flawlessly.
Although the installation is quick even compared to Windows XP, it will not be comfortable to work on a Pentium 3 with 512 MB RAM or on a Pentium 4 with 256 MB RAM. This is something that can be done in order to have an impression of new OS, not if you need the PC for some kind of work that loads on the CPU.
A method in which you are supposed to patch winsetup.dll does not work. Not in 32-bit (x86) version, not anywhere else.
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mona mccallum