There are two points to consider when it comes to system requirements. First, make sure that your computer’s current components support Windows 7. Second, make sure that your hardware meets at least the minimum requirements outlined by Microsoft to run Windows 7.

Microsoft makes it easy to find out if your current system is ready for Windows 7 with the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. You can run this on your system prior to installing Windows 7. Conversely, if you do not check your hardware compatibility, Windows setup will do it automatically for you. As part of setup, the hardware and software are checked for any incompatibility issues.

Most operating systems run on a minimum set of hardware requirements to ensure adequate performance and not meeting these requirements often results in a failed installation. In addition, certain operating system features may require additional requirements. For example, if you want to play music, audio output is required.

The minimum requirements to install Windows 7 are as follows:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Keep in mind when you are choosing hardware that these are the bare minimum requirements to run the operating systems and does not take into account any additional applications or services you will be running. So be prepared to increase these requirements if you will be running various applications.

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