Windows 7 Light Footprint

[Joe S]

Well a lot of people have posted about loading Windows 7 on a minimal machine. I was curious about my old Dell Dimensions 8200 being able to run Windows 7. It has a Pent 4 at 2.0 G processor and 1 G ram. I downloaded VMware Player and installed then installed Win 7 32bit Home Premium. I got mixed up on partitions and installed the VM on an external USB HD and assigned it 512 Meg ram. It naturally is slow to boot. It does run there is sound and all CD/DVD drives read a disk when selected even the external USB DVD Writer.
Anybody have any ideas about how accurate a test this for drivers on elderly PC's? I assume the drivers are loaded from Windows 7 but there is
the remote possibility that VM Player adds them. Let's face it the MS Compatibility Advisor leaves a lot in the Dark!
Joe
Joe

 

[kemical]

I would run the advisor anyway and if it's ok then go for it . Remember though that 7 isn't the resource hog that vista was but it still needs relatively recent hardware to run at it's best..

 

[Joe S]

kemical
This was just an experiment really. The adviser leaves a lot up in the air. Let's see compatibility for Game Port shows
We don't have compatibility information about this device.
SB Live shows
We don't have compatibility information about this device
NVidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 shows a Question mark
We don't have compatibility information about this device
There is a link to Dell which proves to be useless in providing help.
There is no mention of DVD/CD drives
Looking at manufacturer's sites show no new drivers which isn't surprising
It's no wonder so many people here are having problems updating old machines!
I was actually surprised that the VM ran on such compromised resources. Is there any way to tell for sure if drivers were loaded from Windows 7 or from VM Player? I know it does virtualize video cards and network cards. If they actually are from Windows 7 then this might provide a way for people to test first before buying OS and wiping out a working PC and winding up with a mess.
Joe