Min. RAM for Windows XP

[Westat1]

I am having a "heated" debate with management over the amount or RAM needed to run XP and office xp (2002) along with several other programs. They are very cheap here and think 132 is good. I said I need at least 256 but ideally 512.

Any toughts?

[jbinbpt]

It will run with 256 but is counterproductive.

512 for any XP machine. Ram is cheaper than time.....

[davemarks]

I've had a machine running here with XP and 256MB

You could notice the lag, which was annoying. Anything less would be painful.

Time is definatly money and considering RAM is so cheap, you be best to go the whole hog and get 512. Theres nothing worse than waiting for a computer to catch up all the time - it annoys the hell out of me, very frustrating for users!

[Conard]

The machine I’m on right now only has 256 on XP and does fine BUT I have every XP gadget shut off from the beginning.
No pop up bubbles, old 98 style menus and functions.

My laptop has 512 and all the bells and whistles running and is a bit faster. The next time it will be a gig of Ram from the start.

256 is the bare minimum for XP, on the other hand if you get paid by the hour 128 might be better and lend to more work hours.

[Mardi_Gras]

How many machines?

[2oddSox]

jbinbpt summed it up nicely.... RAM is cheaper than time.

512MB now seems to be the standard for many of the clients that I deal with. Now, if we could just get the users to learn how to use the computer...

2odd...

[sys_tech]

just joined the site, and thought that someone at some point might want the exacts on a few of the os's:

without office, the absolute minimum ratings for some of the windows versions are as follows. not sure if office adds some kind of necessary amount, though as mentioned here, bare minimums are not considered 'comfortable'.

hard drive space is also bare minimum - in some cases i have some data as to the full range of possibilities.

Win XP Pro: 233mhz, 64mb RAM, 2gb hard drive space

(the above applies to the corporate version, not clear if other versions of XP pro have a different ram requirement)

Win Me: 150mhz processor, 32mb Ram, 320-420mb hard drive space

- earlier versions (below) don't complain about mhz -

Win 2k server/adv. server: 256mb RAM, 1-2gb hard drive space

Win 2k pro: 64mb RAM, 650mb-2gb hard drive space

Win 98se: 16-24mb RAM, 195mb hard drive space

hope this helps

[mack]

Well for a while I was running XP pro on a machine with a 2 gig HD and only 128 meg of ram. Couple that with a not so fast processor and you have a snail in tortoises cloathing.

Not at all recomemded. 256 would seam to be the min standard for reasonable speed.

Mack.

[jasonc]

I've seen XP Pro running at an acceptable speed on a 400Mhz laptop with 160Mb RAM.