Windows 12's Minimum Requirements: 16 GB RAM?

pparks1 · Jan 21, 2024

bobkn said:
I've never been a Linux user. But there is a Linux core. (Apparently still overseen by Linus Torvalds.) The various distributions are built on that. I can't speak to the compatibility of software across the vast number of distros.

Linus Torvalds is still actively involved in the development of the linux kernel itself. The kernel is the heart of the linux system, and all Linux distributions use some version of that kernel and then package in their own tools, applications, and update systems to effectively create the own unique distribution.

bobkn said:
The main issue that I have with Linux now is I worry about driver support. Application support is a more minor concern. (That would have been different before I retired. I used a Windows-only program. I stopped using it because it was subscription only, $800 per month. I was pretty sure I couldn't get enough consulting gigs to cover that.)

Driver support is always an issue, but big popular hardware is supported great. It's often more a problem with the manufacturer of the hardware rather than the distros or the linux community as a whole. But if more prevalence went to linux desktop, the mfg's would honestly put in the effort to keep sales of their products up.

ShamrockRig · Jan 21, 2024

No current AI program that i've found has used antyhing close to 16gb, it uses so little i don't even notice or check. I doubt an OS incorporated one is gonna use that much more.

ThrashZone · Jan 21, 2024

ShamrockRig said:
No current AI program that i've found has used antyhing close to 16gb, it uses so little i don't even notice or check. I doubt an OS incorporated one is gonna use that much more.

Hi,
Having 6gbs of memory committed is pretty normal these days and that's just with browser with a couple tabs open lol
Not much left over when 16gb is all you got.

But I see this as more of a internet speed issue seeing AI is all online content search but it don't take much for browsers like chrome to soak up memory lol

Kees · Jan 21, 2024

Winuser said:
"My dearest Mrs. Winuser, (etc. etc.)

If I would 'write' such a text (similar, but in Dutch of course), my wife would immediately know, that I did not write the text myself.
Because that's not the kind of language we use, when we normally talk to another.
And believe me, after so many years we are married, we know another through and through.

So especially for this purpose Copilot (or any kind of AI) would be absolutely useless, because it would produce pure nonsenses!

(As far as I'm concerned, this is ending the off-topic LOL for Copilot textwriting.)

kelper · Jan 21, 2024

I paid about £350 for my current laptop. If it won't run Windows 12 I can buy a new laptop for less than many will spend upgrading their desktops to meet the new requirements.

Haydon · Jan 21, 2024

Dear Stormy Daniels,

Can I buy you a late night dinner at McDonald's ?

Haydon

AK6DN · Jan 21, 2024

TechnoMage2021 said:
I read that, and all I can do is shake my head, and say, "NO! NO! NO!" ain't so McGee!
Get your b*** off of the MS train, and download your Windows ISO from a more progressive source, and say Goodby to all that TPM Crap. The Windows Core program does not require TPM anything!

I'm running Windows 11/Pro/64 on an OLD PC, Bios date 2008, with none of the Stipulations imposed by MS. I've simply got 16GB of RAM and a 500GB SSD. And, it runs GREAT with no problems. I don't understand why Y'alls can't do that. ???

I could but I don't want to. Windows 11 gives me NOTHING I need that I don't have in Windows 10. NOTHING. NADA. ZIP. So why bother?

Winuser · Jan 21, 2024

Kees said:
If I would 'write' such a text (similar, but in Dutch of course), my wife would immediately know, that I did not write the text myself.
Because that's not the kind of language we use, when we normally talk to another.
And believe me, after so many years we are married, we know another through and through.

So especially for this purpose Copilot (or any kind of AI) would be absolutely useless, because it would produce pure nonsenses!

(As far as I'm concerned, this is ending the off-topic LOL for Copilot textwriting.)

If I was to write a love letter or any letter at all to my wife, she would suspect that something is wrong. I have known her since December 1978 and I have never written her a letter. I don't do letters unless there is a reason. We tell each other and show each other and that's all we need.

Winuser · Jan 21, 2024

Haydon said:
Dear Stormy Daniels,

Can I buy you a late night dinner at McDonald's ?

Haydon

Now, now! Behave yourself.

Winuser · Jan 21, 2024

AK6DN said:
I could but I don't want to. Windows 11 gives me NOTHING I need that I don't have in Windows 10. NOTHING. NADA. ZIP. So why bother?

I went back and reread your post and I have to ask. Why do you think that a new computer wouldn't be able to run Windows 10?

Wynona · Jan 21, 2024

ThrashZone said:
Yep one of the sources of tpu news article

Press Center - 2024 Commercialization of Copilot to Boost AI Server and AI PC Development, Says TrendForce | TrendForce - Market research, price trend of DRAM, NAND Flash, LEDs, TFT-LCD and green energy, PV

TrendForce anticipates 2024 to mark a significant expansion in edge AI applications, leveraging the groundwork laid by AI servers and branching into AI PCs and other terminal devices. The global AI server market—encompassing AI Training and AI Inference—is projected to exceed 1.6 million units...

www.trendforce.com

And the first sentence makes me pretty suspicious of the article:

TrendForce anticipates 2024 to mark a significant expansion in edge AI applications, leveraging the groundwork laid by AI servers and branching into AI PCs and other terminal devices.

The keyword here is anticipates . . .

Haydon · Jan 21, 2024

Less calories (only a measly ryzen 5 with 8 gb ram) but more atmosphere :copilot:

Wynona · Jan 21, 2024

Winuser said:
I just found something I may use Copilot for. I can use it to write any letters I may need written. As a test I just had it write a short love letter to my wife and it came out good. Not going to spend thousands of dollars on a new computer to do it though.

Sounds good; problem is, I no longer have anyone to write a love letter to.

Wynona · Jan 21, 2024

Haydon said:
Less calories (only a measly ryzen 5 with 8 gb ram) but more atmosphere
View attachment 84758

Behave yourself, @Haydon!

AK6DN · Jan 21, 2024

Winuser said:
I went back and reread your post and I have to ask. Why do you think that a new computer wouldn't be able to run Windows 10?

That isn't what I said. I have a perfectly fine 4core/8thread 3.7GHz XEON with 128GB of ECC RAM and it runs Windows 10 GREAT!
But it won't run Windows 11 because it is TPM1.2 and not 2.0 and has an 'unsupported' CPU.
I am sticking with Windows 10 because I find no compelling reason to even try to upgrade to Windows 11. None. Nada. Zip.

Berton · Jan 21, 2024

AK6DN said:
That isn't what I said. I have a perfectly fine 4core/8thread 3.7GHz XEON with 128GB of ECC RAM and it runs Windows 10 GREAT!
But it won't run Windows 11 because it is TPM1.2 and not 2.0 and has an 'unsupported' CPU.
I am sticking with Windows 10 because I find no compelling reason to even try to upgrade to Windows 11. None. Nada. Zip.

I have an older Dell Precision T1650 that was given to me with a 3.10 gigahertz Intel Xeon E3-1220 V2, works great as my main Win10 computer. It originally came out of a business some 10 or so years ago and had 2 x 500GB HDDs running as RAID 1 and one drive was bad so I changed it out of RAID to AHCI.

Having some time I hardware-cloned the HDD, put it in the computer and Upgraded it to Win11. I used the single file replacement process and ran the Upgrade from while booted into Win10, worked fine. It's back to being my main Win10 Desktop but I wanted to test some of what has been written.

Badger · Jan 21, 2024

Sammy888 said:
I was going to post this in the "News" section but it understandably, only Brink has posting privileges.

Here is the latest shocker for those (like me) who were hoping for general improvements and more by switching to Windows 12 this fall: Windows 12 may force a major change for new PCs.

Basically, thanks to Microsoft's terrible AI, the minimum requirements for Windows 12 will be 16 GB of RAM compared to Windows 11 which requires 4 GB of memory to run and update, while Windows 10 requires 1 GB of memory for a 32-bit machine or 2 GB of memory for a 64-bit computer.

While I have recently upgraded my RAM in my laptop from 16 GB to 32 GB, I still think this is bad news for the masses especially since most people are moving away from desktops/laptops.

Perhaps my next PC should be a MAC?

Sammy888,
A Mac, I use both here and will relay my frustration with the Mac's continual lockdown of their hardware. For instance, the newer ARM systems have both soldered in memory as well as their SSD's. Get this, if your system drive (internal SSD) goes bad the new ARM Mac's won't allow you to even boot from an external drive, hence your machine is dead in the water. This will require a replacement motherboard from Apple. Yeah, can you imagine what that will cost you as an out of warranty repair? Macs, overpriced, no expandability, with built in obsolesce! You sure you want to move to a Mac?

Badger · Jan 21, 2024

jimbo45 said:
Makes sense to me -- who'd buy a modern PC with less than 16GB of RAM in it. Not sure about "The neural processing unit". Who'd build their own rig or buy a desktop with less than 16GB RAM too and a decently powerful CPU.

What to me is utterly pointless is on W11 insisting on the TPM -- a piece of hardware that's easily over 6 years old (a geological era ago in terms of electronics and technology) and I'd bet 99% of W11 installs don't use it nor does Windows 11 on their systems do anything with it especially on domestic systems.

If an OS requires the use of specific hardware then that hardware should be modern and the OS should use it.

Running a NAS server (at least 8 years old) with 2 physical Xeon processors in it and 64GB RAM I've no problem running several W11 VM's -- in fact I almost rarely run W11 on a physical system --usually only on a work supplied laptop -- but even then my gigs are often remote where I use my own system to connect to their cloud VDI system using any OS at my end.

Some might switch to Linux, some won't - but W11 EOL is still a long way off and I can't see what's wrong with a commercial OS making use of the most modern hardware available and not having to be backward compatable with older hardware.

Don't forget Linux is open source so people can write specific routines for all sorts of hardware whereas Windows is a commercial product and having to ensure that it runs on everything is an expensive business. The insistence of a 64 bit CPU for W11 was far too long delayed -- even W10 should have insisted on it.

For me the best future for Windows would be to have it built into a chip while just having proper api's for hardware to be connected to it.
That way no messing around with updates etc -- would be even better if the OS was read only with drivers etc loadable into RAM at boot as well as 3rd party software. Or 3rd party software could be licensed to Ms (as per Apple) and the CMOS chip containing the OS would be updated by a special Ms program.

Maybe this might upset people who like to tinker and customise systems -- perhaps Ms should also offer a "Developers edition" which would be the traditional OS -- give it away free but with no support other than urgent security fixes -- rather like IBM/Redhat does with RHEL Enterprise server -- you can get it free as an individual but for support "You are on your own".

@AK6DN

Agree on linux -- on my main laptop I run Arch Linux with KDE desktop and W11 as a VM under KVM/QEMU.

Note you CAN run W11 on older systems easily enough.
1) create a VM under KVM/QEMU. Use an external device for the VM's hard disk. GUI available if you install virt-manager. Ensure for TPM packages swtpm and swtpm-tools (or whatever it's called in your distro). This is the IBM TPM emulator and it works for Windows VM's.
2) ensure package for secure boot for VM installed -- usually called something like OVMF - although might be installed automatically when you install KVM/QEMU.
3) in the virtual machine set the TPM to emulated -->hypervisor default -->CRB or TIS 2.0 -- either will do
4) set the cpu to hypervisor default (uncheck the cpu -> use host configuration)
5) boot the vm with the windows iso install -- get one from UUPDUMP for the version you want.
6) boot ->repair system>command prompt
7) diskpart
8) create a small efi partition on the virtual disk and a windows standard ntfs partition.
9) use dism /Apply-Image to install windows.
10) use bcdboot to install the windows boot loader to the main windows partition.
11) after installing the VM boot it up and install some sort of disk cloning software -- macrium free will still work currently.
12) add your actual target disk for your Windows installation - but add as a PHYSICAL hard disk not as a Virtual hard disk

e.g add to the xml file in devices : (change /dev/sdc to what's approp[riate for your machine)

<disk type="block" device="disk">
<driver name="qemu" type="raw"/>
<source dev="/dev/sdc"/>
<target dev="vdb" bus="virtio"/>
</disk>

13) clone to this disk
14) power off and boot the windows disk
15) update drivers -- you'll need video / audio etc etc. Te TPM from the VM is fine as it's designed to run on Windows -

16) enjoy !!!

17) You don't need to - because this won't be a "daily use VM" but to get proper Video / mouse / audio etc you can install the virtio-tools for windows on the VM -- iso available from the fedora site - drivers are signed on latest iso so no probs with Windows install.

19) to update the target W11 after install - if it fails on unsupported hardware simply clone back to the VM, update and clone back again.

For the dism and bcdboot windows commands there's plenty of examples on the Forum.

@Sammy888

KDE desktop on Arch Linux -- just as easy to use as Windows.

View attachment 84608

Modern Linux distros have GUI's - some of which are almost more Windows than Windows -- KDE is a desktop that most windows users would have absolutely no problems in using. Linux Mint is another "Very Windows like" system too. Just download a live distro and try it out - it boots from a USB drive and won't mess your installed system - it doesn't even keep changes you make to the system while using it - everything is done in RAM and these are all discarded at shutdown.

Cheers
jimbo

However, the biggest hurdle for Linux has always been lack of drivers and it's been that way a very long time! Once they finally overcome that hurdle, their userbase will greatly increase!

Winuser · Jan 21, 2024

AK6DN said:
That isn't what I said. I have a perfectly fine 4core/8thread 3.7GHz XEON with 128GB of ECC RAM and it runs Windows 10 GREAT!
But it won't run Windows 11 because it is TPM1.2 and not 2.0 and has an 'unsupported' CPU.
I am sticking with Windows 10 because I find no compelling reason to even try to upgrade to Windows 11. None. Nada. Zip.

AK6DN said:
I guess when/if I need to get new hardware that only runs WIn 11 or Win 12 I'll just package my Win 10 into a VM on Linux, I guess.

Your words, not mine.

Brink · Jan 22, 2024

There are currently many reports, some of which confuse things about Windows in general. This concerns the last message, which stated 16 GB of RAM as a minimum requirement. Some immediately deduced that it was about Windows 12.

But this is about the new AI PCs, which will require more RAM due to the use of Copilot. For example, Surface devices are equipped with this and receive at least 16 GB of RAM. This information is only important for the OEM (device manufacturer). It also has nothing to do with Windows 12. Because Microsoft will provide Windows 11 24H2 in the fall and with it the new AI PCs.

Windows 11 23H2 Moment 5, Windows 11 24H2 und Windows 12 - Deskmodder.de

www.deskmodder.de

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