Hardware requirements are really unpopular between users since manufacturers scrounge to put the lowest possible hardware spec and promise all the bells and whistles on it. Usually, this means a scam-loving dealer selling a turd of a computer to the consumer and get software performance that smells just the same.
Something tells us this might not be the case with Windows 7 - Back in January, Windows 7 Beta came out with the first preliminary hardware specifications. Based on feedback given by the owners of various systems, Microsoft firmed hardware requirements with the recently shipped RC version.
According to Microsoft, minimum hardware specs for running Win 7 are as follows: 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB of disc space for 32-bit version, 20GB for 64-bit version and a DirectX9-compliant graphics card. This means almost every PC manufactured after September 2002 should run Windows 7 - something that we haven't seen in the past. If this is true, owners of older computers can delay the purchase of their machine until they are able to save up for the DirectX11-compliant, multi-core computer.
The much praised and criticized "XPM", e.g. virtual WinXP on Win7, minimum memory requirement is set at 2GB, additional 15GB of disc space, and of course - a processor with hardware support for virtualization.
