Windows xp and 128 megs of ram

[Lvis]

My girlfriends computer. It's an early p4 with rambus memory. My question is, will it work reasonably well? She doesn't do a heck of a lot with it, mostly surfing, instant messaging. Her son does play a game or two, but nothing too recent.

She has Millenium editon now, and has grown tired of it.

Thanks.

 

[globalcitizen]

My parents have an old Dell w/ 128 RDRAM and running XP Home. All I can say that it runs........slowly. IE takes like 30-45 seconds to load and the hard drive will be pounded by the page file.

 

[hans030390]

i have a 32mb system that runs it fine....not....no, tell her it wont work and it is only prettier than ME...if you like, get windows blinds and make it look like XP.

 

[Aenslead]

It will be pretty slow.

I suggest you get a pair of 64Mb RAMBUST memory...

Just check the parity, speed and bittage...

I suggest you install win2k instead.

 

[Zugzwang152]

windows 2000 will work a lot better with 128MB. unfortunately, the remaining win 2000 copies out there run $120-150. The price of an XP Home OEM license is just under $90, so maybe you should consider dumping the difference into more ram.

 

[Nothinman]

i have a 32mb system that runs it fine....not....no, tell her it wont work and it is only prettier than ME...if you like, get windows blinds and make it look like XP.

It's a lot more than prettier than WinME, personally I would rather not use a computer at all than run WinME.

 

[Cha0s]

runs, but very slowly.. i recommend getting win2000

 

[RaymondY]

WinXP Pro is too slow when sytem only has 128mb memory. Just reconfigured 2 office machines with 128mb to 640mb. Huge difference in performance

 

[BFG10K]

It'll be sluggish but it'll run.

 

[stratman]

Should be ok, I installed XP on my sisters OLD lappy, (I think with 96meg ram) and I was extrememly suprised to find it ran ok.

 

[duragezic]

Go TOTALLY minimal on startup programs, visual effects, running services, etc.. and it would be usable. Keep bloated software off.

 

[Snapster]

For a user who wont do allot, it'll run ok if you turn all the visual effects off maybe even run it in classic mode.

 

[xgsound]

Here's my experience with 500Mhz P3;

at 128 MB XP runs ok with NOTHING added only if you turn off the visual goodies. Even adding only AVG and Kerio 2.1.5 makes bootup and program load painfully long. I find it too slow to use.

at 194 MB with visual goodies off bootup is as snappy as with win98se if you do not allow many startup programs or services. This is usable.

at 256 MB and above performance remains standard and the better memory managment of XP or WIN2000 kicks in above 256 MB. This works better than WIN98se. (but it's still a P3 500)

In short 194seems to be a practical minimum, and 256 is desired.

Jim

 

[tm37]

I have seen it and it is bad if you want to more than play freecell

 

[Mellow]

My mother has been doing all of her private business management with a pIII 500mhz with 128mb ram. This included all MS office apps, firefox, and a little WMP. shes been running fine for over a year. She does have a very good patience however...

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

i have a 32mb system that runs it fine....not....no, tell her it wont work and it is only prettier than ME...if you like, get windows blinds and make it look like XP.

It's a lot more than prettier than WinME, personally I would rather not use a computer at all than run WinME.

Well said. Probably the most unstable and vulnerable OS I've ever experienced.

 

[SonicIce]

memory is very cheap now. i wouldn't even consider running winxp with under 256mb ram.

 

[alent1234]

in my case i wouldn't run XP without less than 512MB RAM and most likely with nothing less than 1GB of RAM. But in my case at work my PC uses 450MB of RAM with nothing open. That is all the apps that I have loaded that need to run in the background. AV, spyware detecting apps, jet admin and I forgot what else.

Ticked me off so bad that I'm going back to win2000 which uses something like 200MB RAM less with the same apps.

 

[Lvis]

Thanks guys. I think I'll just reinstall ME for her. It will have to do until she gets a new machine... maybe this one. I could stand an upgrade I guess.

With the cost of Rambus memory, upgrading hers makes no sense.

 

[jfall]

I wouldn't use any less than 256mb for XP

 

[PUNKtotalled]

Oh my god running XP with 128megs has to be painfull!

 

[biostud]

The stability of XP outweights windowsME 1000-fold IMHO. Just turn off all graphic enhancements. Sure the pagefile will be stressed, but stability > all.

 

[episodic]

You know - noone has suggested it - but I'd install Win98SE - she'd like her computer much better with it.

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

Just because I didn't think this thread had enough opinions it in already...

I'd kick it up to 256 MB if I intended on doing more than web browsing with it under XP... 128 MB will work, but even with visual stuff an the other extras off, its still pretty damn slow. If you must keep it as it is, Win2k is probably a better choice.