DescentBB

yeah, I know what M$ says, but I'm interested in your opinions. I'm planning to get a laptop with Win7 Pro and I'd like to know what you guys think the minimum specs are for memory, disk space and anything else are? Not for games, just for office apps, network and internet.

Disk space: anything over 100 GB will give you plenty of room for installing applications and storing documents.
Memory: 4 GB recommended for the 64 bit version. In the 32 bit version there is no point to going beyond 3 GB (windows won't be able to use any more).

I have 8 GB and Windows 7 (64 bit) idles around 1200-1400 MB of memory used, but will use most of the remaining memory as a cache.

is 64 bit important? any rationale to get 32 bit?

Well, 32-bit may have a lower memory footprint - I have a laptop with 2 GB of memory that runs it fine.

I think normally the box comes with both versions, doesn't it? Mine does but it's the Ultimate version so it may be different...

which CPU do you guys think should be used as a minimum?

It'll run on an Intel Atom.

a 20 GB parition is a bit small for win7.

20GB is tiny for Win7. I suggest at least 30. It's just as bloated as vista.

I ran the 32-bit RC back in June on an AMD Sempron 2.2 GHz. I suggest at least 2.0 in single core or 1.8 in dual core. I was able to get it to run with 1GB of RAM, and better than vista could function, but for best performance I suggest 2GB. For graphics, I suggest at least an nVidia 7900 or 8600 on PCI Express; my 7600 on AGP was a little limited; I turned off Aero and the glass and transparency and it ran fine, but had issues if I didn't.

Krom wrote:It'll run on an Intel Atom.

Yep. Got a netbook around running it just fine.

I ran the Win7 RC on a 20g partiton.

it didn't affect anything *except* the odd program that is hard coded the check the amount of space on the C drive before installing(ie c:\\windows\\temp). I had to struggle to have more than a gig free.