Worried that you’ll have to buy a new PC in order to be able to run Windows 8? Don’t! Microsoft has said that the Windows 8 system requirements will be the same, or perhaps even lower, than those of Windows 7.
Speaking at the 2011 Worldwide Partner Conference, Tami Reller, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Windows division, had this to say:
“In both of our Windows 8 previews, we talked about continuing with the important trend that we started with Windows 7, keeping system requirements either flat or reducing them over time. Windows 8 will be able to run on a wide range of machines because it will have the same requirements or lower.”
So if Windows 8 has the same system requirements that Windows 7 had, that should mean that Windows 8 will also run on systems that currently have Windows Vista installed on them.
As a reminder, here are the Windows 7 system requirements:
  • 1GHz CPU
  • 1GB RAM (32-bit) or 2GB RAM (64-bit)
  • 16 GB hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
How will Windows 8 pull this trick off?
“We’ve also built intelligence into Windows 8 so that it can adapt to the user experience based on the hardware of the user. So, whether you’re upgrading an existing PC, or buying a new one, Windows will adapt to make the most of that hardware.”
Good news for those wanting a new OS without having to buy new hardware.