Suggestion required for installation

I am planning to install windows 7 on my friends PC..
His PC configuration is
1 GB RAM
500 GB HDD
Pentium D processor..

I thought of installing windows 7 x86 Home basic..What do you guys suggest??

That's about the only version I'd install on that system. I would try to talk him into more memory as well. What video card is currently in the system?

DeaconFrost said:

That's about the only version I'd install on that system. I would try to talk him into more memory as well. What video card is currently in the system?

I told him to add 1 gb extra but he refused to..He has an board graphic card probably 128 MB as I recall.I told him that installing HP would slow down..

i agree; he does need to get some extra memory in that thing simply for the reason being that while I do believe windows 7 uses more memory overall then xp, etc; it uses that memory more effectively then xp, etc. If u try to install it with only the very minimum amount of memory; more than likely u will have very sluggish and slow performance if Im thinking correctly.

matts6887 said:

i agree; he does need to get some extra memory in that thing simply for the reason being that while I do believe windows 7 uses more memory overall then xp, etc; it uses that memory more effectively then xp, etc. If u try to install it with only the very minimum amount of memory; more than likely u will have very sluggish and slow performance if Im thinking correctly.

I mentioned the same to him..But he is determined to run windows 7 on his PC.

bagavan said:

matts6887 said:

i agree; he does need to get some extra memory in that thing simply for the reason being that while I do believe windows 7 uses more memory overall then xp, etc; it uses that memory more effectively then xp, etc. If u try to install it with only the very minimum amount of memory; more than likely u will have very sluggish and slow performance if Im thinking correctly.

I mentioned the same to him..But he is determined to run windows 7 on his PC.

Well; u might also want to mention that if he runs only the minimum amount of memory; he might risk windows crashing(aka blue screen errors); which if unresolved can lead to operating system damage due to the fact that windows does not have enough memory to function properly when trying to perform several functions at once. If he does not want that then he needs to put at least an extra gig of memory in it; also u could mention that memory these days is very inexpensive compared to what it used to be and is a very worthwhile performance upgrade for a relatively inexpensive price.

He isn't going to BSoD just from having too little memory. The system will just need to do more caching than normal, which results in the slow down. That isn't going to corrupt the OS at all.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Home Basic should be fine, because his graphics card sounds like it wouldn't support Aero anyway. I've put Home Basic on computers around that speed, and it's been fine. Don't expect miracles or a lightning fast system, but it will run at a very usable level for the basics. Even if you loaded Home Premium, it would end up looking like Home Basic due to the lack of Aero support.

DeaconFrost said:

He isn't going to BSoD just from having too little memory. The system will just need to do more caching than normal, which results in the slow down. That isn't going to corrupt the OS at all.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Home Basic should be fine, because his graphics card sounds like it wouldn't support Aero anyway. I've put Home Basic on computers around that speed, and it's been fine. Don't expect miracles or a lightning fast system, but it will run at a very usable level for the basics. Even if you loaded Home Premium, it would end up looking like Home Basic due to the lack of Aero support.

He is a basic computer user.Just uses it to view photos and browse the net.