Is this box too old for Win 7 (2.4Ghz P4)

I have an older box with an Intel 2.4C processor (2.4Ghz Pentium IV). It does have a lot of memory for its age (2GB) and 2x120GB hard drives.

I'm thinking of using it mainly for my iTunes sync (actual media files are on a network share) and maybe MS Office (not intensively). Not all at once though Inevitably, I'd have to have some sort of anti-virus I suppose, which always slows things down, especially on a single processor machine.

Anyway, don't need high performance, but if it's going to be unusably slow, I won't bother. I have an unused copy of Win 7...worth trying?

Can I install Win 7 and then not activate immediately to see if performance is acceptable? If it is, I would activate within a few days - I just want to try things out before I burn the license.

Yes you can. just pop in the disk and trial it. If you like it activate it.

MSE or Avast 6 won't slow a P4 with 2gb RAM at all. Use the Win7 Firewall.

To see if any conflicts possibly exist, run Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Adapt the steps for Perfect Reinstall in my signature below to get the best, leanest, cleanest install.

I have installed installed Win 7 on a 1Ghz P3 with 512M RAM and it runs OK there so I'm sure it will run fine on your 2.4G P4 with 2G RAM. Anyway, you can install it and have 30 days before you have to activate it.

I installed and the box is surprisingly snappy. Works great.

One bummer is that the mobo is an Intel D865GBF and they never released Win 7 drivers for it. Since the video is on the board, that left me with Standard VGA as the display adapter. However, following advice elsewhere, I installed the driver in Win XP compatibility mode and it worked fine.

So all and all, a good experience.

You should get sleep and hibernate now with the XP mode driver. Good work.

I would download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft. It might also be worth a check on the Windows Seven Compatibility Center at Microsoft. These are great resources for investigating if Win 7 will work on your PC.

raindog308 said:

Can I install Win 7 and then not activate immediately to see if performance is acceptable? If it is, I would activate within a few days - I just want to try things out before I burn the license.

Click to expand...

That's the way Windows 7 should always be installed on a new build or a system that's never had it before. I actually never input the key during the install, because I'd rather copy and paste it. You'll have 30 days to give it a run, load drivers, and see if you want to keep it.

I don't think there will be any problems running Windows 7 in that configuration. I have been running Windows 7 on less hardware than that. But ofcourse it depends on that you plan to use the computer for.