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Does Windows 7 live well on a 1 GB RAM Atom netbook? It's hard for me to try before I buy at the moment, so any advice from those that are already running Windows 7 would be appreciated.

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It uses 1GB on my PC idle with nothing running!!! –  CodeBlend Mar 25 '12 at 19:41
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6 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Yes, I am using it on an ASUS N10 (1 GB of memory), and it seems to run as well as Windows XP did. There are a few minor driver issues, but nothing bad enough to make me revert to Windows XP.

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I've got it running on a 1 GB Atom Netbook and I think it runs fine. Admitedly I only use it for web browsing, but I can't say I've noticed any performance difference to when it was running Windows XP.

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+1 For actually having it running. –  Diago Jul 17 '09 at 13:37
Yep, I have it running on my Dell Mini 9 happily. –  Scott Hanselman Aug 20 '09 at 23:38
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I have an Acer Aspire One (160 GB HDD) with 1 GB of RAM and I run Photoshop CS3, Flash, Visual Studio and Windows 7.

Only because I found a tutorial and it was easy I added an additional 512 MB of RAM. But my system ran Windows 7 RC1 perfectly before adding the extra RAM.

With a netbook I noticed that I got a little extra boost by using a ReadyBoost drive as well.

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Nice detailed answer - cheers –  serg10 Jul 22 '09 at 18:31
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If they are able to get it working on a Pentium II I think any current generation computer should be able to run it.

Edit: I have it running on a 6-year old HP-notebook. 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4, but only 512 MB RAM. Runs smoothly, only couldn't get my network drivers working, else I would have been able to review it's performance on websites and the like. But a 1 Gb Atom should be more than sufficient

Your biggest concern off course is what you can do with such a system.

Since if you try to multitask heavily or loads tons of superuser pages you can fill up any amount of RAM. 1 Gb should be fine for some browsing and IMing

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I have it running on some Celeron's with a 1GB of RAM with no issues whatsoever. It is extremely fast and does not seem to be hampered.

You can still download the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft until the 15th of August to test it for yourself. You can download it here

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Thanks for the comparison. Haven't bought the netbook yet so not able test unfortunatly. –  serg10 Jul 17 '09 at 17:21
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I believe Microsoft has a specific flavor of Windows 7 for netbooks (Edit: Looks like this was scrapped?) which is pretty stripped down.

I am not sure if a full-blown Windows 7 would be suitable for a 1gb RAM netbook...maybe if you went back to the retro displays and such.


Test Drive: Windows 7 on a Netbook

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Nope, Windows Starter Edition isn't for netbooks. Windows Ultimate or any SKU works great. –  Scott Hanselman Aug 20 '09 at 23:39
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