Longhorn System Requirements

[Lee G. Veteran]

The system requirements for Windows XP are:

? PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

? 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

? 1.5 gigabyte (GB) of available hard disk space.*

? Super VGA (800 ? 600) or higher resolution video adapter and monitor

? CD-ROM or DVD drive

? Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Are the system requirements for Longhorn similar or much higher?

(I'd assume much higher). What are the system requirements for Longhorn (:/y build)? :/

[Vice]

No one has the requirements yet. Longhorn is still in Alpha.

[Lee G. Veteran]

Any rough estimation?

Has anyone experienced problems installing because of a lack of system requirements?

[Vice]

Its still in alpha the current alpha's out at the moment are just Windows XP with "enhancements" as they see what works and what they feel will be good in Windows Longhorn.

The current alpha builds have same requirements as Windows XP Because they ARE windows XP. and because of this no one knows what the final specs for Longhorn will be they have only done 10% of the work its still in Alpha and wont be a Beta till next year.

[Lee G. Veteran]

OK. Thanks.

This is a question that's been puzzling me. As long as the PC has the requirements of what I said above, Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 can be upgraded to XP. However, I've only seen Longhorn being installed on Windows XP. Can Longhorn be installed on Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 if the PCs meet the requirements for XP?

[Vice]

The current Alpha build can yes. I installed Longhorn on a 733mhz P3 256MB ram 40GB HDD and some on board no name graphics just fine.

I expect when Longhorn comes out it will require 2.0ghz Penitum or a 2000+ AMD Machine for minimum specs. But thats 2006 and by then I'm sure everyone who intends to upgrade there computer to it will be well within that speed.

[Lee G. Veteran]

What OS did you have before installing Longhorn?

Edited November 8, 2004 by LCG

[98XT]

You cannot "upgrade" to Longhorn. All current builds are clean-install only.

[Lee G. Veteran]

All current builds are clean-install only.

Sorry, I know - upgrade is the wrong word. I'll change my post.

It can be used as well as XP as a second OS right?

[Vice]

^^ not exsactly. I upgraded from Windows 98 or Windows XP I cannot remember.

I went through the install and the Upgrade option was marked out so I could do a clean install only. I was ok with this as I knew this would be the case before I downloaded Longhorn and it was not my main rig.

Anyway after the install I found all my files still there... none of my programs worked of course and anyhitng todo with my past windows install was gone. but all my Files were still there like vid files images things like that.

I dont know if this is supposed to happen with the alpha or not?? anyway I'm sorry I cant remember what I installed Longhorn over. I think it was windows 98 but I cannot be sure.

[EDIT] it can be used as a second OS if you partition your HDD first, you can do this by using a program such as Partition Magic or you can just do it from Command Prompt but thats more complicated.

[Lee G. Veteran]

I have a Windows 98 PC, 350mhz, 64MB RAM ( :pinch: Ouch, I know), 10GB hard drive (a huge hard drive considering it was bought in 1998). It's gathering dust and really needs the OS to be reinstalled. I was wondering it was compatible with Longhorn (as it's compatible with XP (RAM only just passes the requirements)). :huh:

It has a C drive (1.63GB) and a D drive (8GB). If Longhorn could be installed, could it be installed and booted from the D drive (I think this question's been answered before, but I'd to check once more).

I'm almost certain that I won't install Longhorn on it, but I want to check if Longhorn could be installed on this PC.

[nite2kx]

Maybe

[CeL_dAmAgE]

Instead of upgrading to longhorn if your having poor performance or just need things to run a little bit faster you could try downgrading to Win2000. It's a great OS. The limits for longhorn I remember seeing them on a site. I think the requirements were at the bare minimum a 1.5 ghz, 256 mb ram, 4 GB hdd, and I think a 32 mb videocard.

[greg098]

Windows Codename 'Longhorn' has 4 sections. One basic one, which has the jade theme which is for slow computers, up to the full aero theme, which is for new computers with a high graphics card and memory. I requirement for jade is the same as xp. The aero one is 2.7ghz, 512mb ram, 128 graphics.

[Larney]

The current alpha builds have same requirements as Windows XP Because they ARE windows XP. and because of this no one knows what the final specs for Longhorn will be they have only done 10% of the work its still in Alpha and wont be a Beta till next year.

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Incorrect, the latest builds of Longhorn are being coded from Windows Server 2003 SP1 and not XP. Although some of the specifications may be the same they are not being based from XP.

[Lee G. Veteran]

How about Slate? I love that theme and the Sidebar?

Ah well. I'm going to install Longhorn and get rid of Windows 98 - I've decided - I'll try and install as little as possible. I like Windows 2000 as well, I searched for it on eBay, but I think I'll stick with Longhorn. :)

[KayMan2K]

Incorrect, the latest builds of Longhorn are being coded from Windows Server 2003 SP1 and not XP. Although some of the specifications may be the same they are not being based from XP.

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Windows XP = Windows NT 5.1

Windows 2003 = Windows NT 5.2

Windows Longhorn = Windows NT 6.0

So it makes sense to build Longhorn from the most current version of the OS core.... Windows 2003 (which was built from XP).

It was also already posted that Longhorn has 3 performance tiers. The lowest for low-end PCs and servers uses and the highest requiring a 128 Mb DirectX 9 graphics card. I don't think it would need a P4 2.0 Ghz + AMD Equivalent. Because all of the fancy effects will be rendered by the GPU.. I predict the highest tier requires around P4 1.4 Ghz + AMD XP+. Of course, everything is a guess until Dec 31st 2006.

[KayMan2K]

How about Slate? I love that theme and the Sidebar?

Ah well. I'm going to install Longhorn and get rid of Windows 98 - I've decided - I'll try and install as little as possible. I like Windows 2000 as well, I searched for it on eBay, but I think I'll stick with Longhorn. :)

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DO NOT use Longhorn as your primary OS. It is still being developed.. and is in the early stages. It DOES have a lot of bugs and all of the features still aren't finished. It is fun to play around with, but you cannot depend on it.

Remember, Microsoft will be releasing an upgrade for XP that will add a lot Longhorn features without installing a new OS. You can always download the Longhorn Transformation Pack to graphically update your XP.

If you have Longhorn then you probably have MSDN or MSDNAA. Windows 2000 is provided free with that license. No need to search on eBay.

[SkaterAustin]

Beta 1 of longhorn actually comes out in feb. or march of next year so I dont know what the fuss is about, by beta 1 we should be able to tell how its going to run on a pc. I got my copy of longhorn at PDC and it ran nice on my amd 64 system once i got rid of the dam winFS(waste of time), But Im lookin forward to beta 1

[Guest Smithee]

As everyone has said, Longhorn is of course Alpha at the moment. That means that the current performance does not reflect in any way, what the final performance/requirements will be.

I tryed Longhorn build 4074 on the following spec machine:

Athlon XP 2000

256MB RAM

Nvidia GeForce 4 MX

and it ran pretty darn slowly! It was useable, and adding extra RAM would have made a considerable difference, but I certainly wouldn't want to run day to day with that particular build and that spec of machine.

This is not to say that longhorn won't run better in its final build (it probably will), but you'll never get the kind of performance on that spec of machine, that XP has.

Therefore the machine you quoted, sounds seriously underpowered for any build of Longhorn. I think you'd end up being frustrated by the lack of performance. I guess it'd be worth it to find out roughly what Longhorn is like, but that machine could never run it day tio day as a main OS.

[Larney]

Please people stop being so stupid? Nobody knows and this thread is pointless, its all to do with how hardware advances...k...thx...

[Lee G. Veteran]

I suppose this thread has gotten quite stupid - sorry.

Anyway, I'll have a go and see what the results are, then I'll probably reinstall 98.

[akaladis Veteran]

i expect 1ghz,256mb being the minimum... could be more though

[Lee G. Veteran]

You're probably right - it's going to be risky installing it on 98 - ah well - I've got nothing to lose really - may as well - it'll be interesting to see how slow it is.

[doodzzz]

Longhorn System Requirements

While Microsoft have not officially published requirements for Longhorn this is what we would reccomend as the minimum for a smooth running Longhorn:

1 GHz Intel Pentium III Processor or higher; AMD Athlon family of Processors

512MB of RAM

6GB of free hard disk space

I got that from: http://www.<< spam >>/Chris123NT/4074/LHGuide.html