David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
What Your PC Will Need if You Want to Upgrade to Windows 10
by Vic Laurie
27th May, 2015
It?s looking more and more likely that Microsoft will achieve its announced aim of shipping Windows 10 sometime around the end of July or thereabouts. The May 20 announcement of build 10122 seems to indicate that most of the important feature changes are in. So we may have reached the point where it is time to start considering if you are going to take advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10 that will be available to many people. A lot of the people who are eligible for an upgrade probably have older machines so it is worth looking at the system requirements for running Windows 10.
If you have a system already running Windows 8.1, you are probably good to go. However, because of the space needed for certain hidden partitions and for backup installation files, make sure that you have ample spare free disk space. Before Windows 10 is installed, the installer will run a check of system requirements.
Those with older systems can take a look at the graphic below, which shows the general requirements for desktop systems. It is taken from a Microsoft presentation at the recent WinHEC show. These requirements are for new PCs and intended for OEMs but they are indicative.
Personally, I find the memory and storage requirements given in the graphic to be unrealistically low. I think you?d be a lot better off doubling the amount of RAM listed. I also think a minimum system volume of ~60 GB is a good idea. Most PC users will want even more space for storing files but that can be on a separate disk volume. Note that the UEFI requirement is only for new PCs. Old BIOS systems are still supposed to be able to run Windows 10. Not stated in the slide but you also need a CPU that supports PAE, NX, and SSE2. Almost any PC processor of the last few years will have this support but, if need be, you can check with the Sysinternals command-line utility Coreinfo.
by Vic Laurie
27th May, 2015
It?s looking more and more likely that Microsoft will achieve its announced aim of shipping Windows 10 sometime around the end of July or thereabouts. The May 20 announcement of build 10122 seems to indicate that most of the important feature changes are in. So we may have reached the point where it is time to start considering if you are going to take advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10 that will be available to many people. A lot of the people who are eligible for an upgrade probably have older machines so it is worth looking at the system requirements for running Windows 10.
If you have a system already running Windows 8.1, you are probably good to go. However, because of the space needed for certain hidden partitions and for backup installation files, make sure that you have ample spare free disk space. Before Windows 10 is installed, the installer will run a check of system requirements.
Those with older systems can take a look at the graphic below, which shows the general requirements for desktop systems. It is taken from a Microsoft presentation at the recent WinHEC show. These requirements are for new PCs and intended for OEMs but they are indicative.
Personally, I find the memory and storage requirements given in the graphic to be unrealistically low. I think you?d be a lot better off doubling the amount of RAM listed. I also think a minimum system volume of ~60 GB is a good idea. Most PC users will want even more space for storing files but that can be on a separate disk volume. Note that the UEFI requirement is only for new PCs. Old BIOS systems are still supposed to be able to run Windows 10. Not stated in the slide but you also need a CPU that supports PAE, NX, and SSE2. Almost any PC processor of the last few years will have this support but, if need be, you can check with the Sysinternals command-line utility Coreinfo.
