Windows 7 on a Pentium 4 Machine

As the title says, will Windows 7 install on a older (10 years) Pentium 4 Machine?

Also, is the P4 in 32, or 64 bit?

It should work on a Pentium 4, speed requirement is for at least 1GHz plus at least 1GB of RAM. Don't know which exact model of the P4 you have, there's a bunch of different ones, but it will run 32-bit but questionable on the 64-bit. If it will run 64-bit you'll need 2GB RAM. And if the motherboard has onboard/built-in video it takes part of the RAM so always better to run more, I like minimum 2GB for 32-bit and 3GB or 4GB for 64-bit. Note: if that was a WinXP computer, only the Professional version was available as either 64-bit or 32-bit editions, Home and Media Center editions were only 32-bit.

What are the full specs of the computer?
The CPU being a P4 tells us very little.
Early P4's were 32 bit only, later ones were 64 bit capable.

You can install 32 Bit Windows 7 on almost all P4 machine. But there won't be any compatible VGA driver available for most of the P4 chipsets. If the chipset is a 915 one, XP driver will work in compatibility mode. Otherwise i would recommend buying an AGP card which is 'Win 7" compatible.

I would run 64 bit only on more than 4gb RAM.

On low resource machines immediately edit Visual Effects in Advanced System Settings of fading, sliding, animation, dragging intact and selection rectangle. This will not be noticeable but help conserve resources.

Depending on your video card you may or may not have Aero but it isn't enough of a concern to turn off to save resources.

Other tips to get and keep a perfect install are the same as for Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

The Machine is a Dell Dimension 3000. Pentium 4 2.8ghz CPU, 80GB Hdd, 2GB of RAM, Integrated Video, but I think there is an AGP slot available.

This is my neighbors machine he wants me to see if I can try to run Windows 7, since Windows Xp is now retired. He refuses to upgrade to Windows Vista.

I know this is not what you were looking for but.....For less than $200 you can get a very capable computer. Since a legal copy of windows is about $100 and The maximum DDR memory the Dimension 3000 supports is 2gb. [2 x 1gb modules]. its not worth upgrading in my opinion.

An alternative....

Refurbished: Lenovo M58P DTIBM58P-MT1W Desktop PC Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz 4GB 250GB HDD Windows 7 Home Premium - Newegg.com

All of my computers are think centers and they are workhorses.

I would recommend downloading the latest SP1 integrated installation images of "Windows 7" from "DigitalRiver" ( a subsidiary of Microsoft" and use it to install 7 on your neighbor's machine.

Windows 7 SP1 ISO Official DigitalRiver Direct Download Links


Since your neighbor's system is old and probably may not run Aero, "Home Basic" will best suit to his system. The trial install will let you know which components works and which are not and if any upgrade like an AGP card is needed. If everything is okay, you can buy a license and activate Windows.