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I set up a Windows XP VM recently for tech support scammers. When they call I let them log in to the VM, which only has 32MB of RAM (it's possible to boot XP on 32MB, after installing on 64MB) and an internet connection throttled down to dial-up speeds. Sadly I can't find a way to underclock the CPU in VMware, but limiting it to 1% of the host is pretty effective.

Actually, you run Win95 somewhat ok on a 386-16 with 8MB of 30-pin SIMMs from 1985, but it would have been top of the line for that year (some boards had 8 ram slots, 1MB modules were available). That OS did have a means to install from around 40 floppies. 4MB modules are still available, so it's possible to resurrect the dead.

The world's slowest WinXP box runs at 8Mhz, boots in 30 minutes, and just running Task Manager by itself keeps the CPU pegged at 100%.

You can get Windows XP to boot on as little as 18 MB of ram:
Source.

I do, but cutting it down would be hard. 7 just isn't made for embedded devices

Neither was XP, but XPe runs fairly decently on some fairly thin machines. Hell, XP has been gotten to 'work' (with no code modification) on 8MHz systems with 20MB of RAM: link

There's also tiny7 (made by hobbyists w/o any recompilation), which retains most if not all of the Windows 7 functionality and can run on quite a few last-generation setups (ie 256MB of RAM). I do not doubt that the w7 kernel itself could be pruned down to run on some truly archaic x86 hardware - even by a hobbyist.

Replacing and/or refining a couple subsystems by Microsoft could certainly get W7 running on pretty much anything - just as has been done with Linux.

A virtual machine is meaningless here. How well does it run on the bare hardware? Or in other words, when the virtual machine's disk image isn't being cached by the host machine.

On the other hand, apparently running XP in as little as 18MB is apparently doable:
http://winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm

LOL. on my old 1GHz/512ram/pata hdd i have 22 seconds from ntldr to busy cursor gone. windows 7 doesn't even install on that

Yes, actually it does:

http://www.dailytech.com/Tinkerer+Squeezes+Windows+7+Onto+Pentium+II+System/article15509.htm

yeah, sure. and windows xp also runs on 486. the question is, can you really get the work done with xp on 486 or w7 on athlon 1Ghz ? also I'd bet the guy on that forum hasn't really installed w7 on 128MB ram. He probably performed the install with required RAM then unplugged the modules.

Actually some guys tried that with VMWare. They didn't get to Windows 7, just to Windows XP, but to make up for it, they included clean MS-DOS 5, Windows 1 and Windows 2.

The page with the update marathon is German, but hey, it has many screenshots!

I was running Debian on a 300 MHz Pentium II back in 2003, when the rest of the world was using Windows XP. Performance wasn't an issue. Windows XP wouldn't have even installed on that hardware, much less run. (I did have Windows 2000 creaking along for a while, though, to run some Windows-only apps.)

The minimum requirements for XP is a 233Mhz processer with 64MB of ram. And while the 64MB seems to be a hard requirement for install, it will run on considerably less. Though I wouldn't want to use it that way.

These Guys mentioned in a Previous Slashdot article were able to install XP on hardware that was much slower than that.

I'm not saying it would be at a usable speed, but you *can* run it to check.

Sorry to crap on your parade, but MS-BOB is abandonware and is freely available here (German page, but ms-bob is in english)

1. Hardware: I remember upgrading my dad from Win95 to Win98 on his old original Pentium 166. A little more RAM (he'd already upgraded the hard drive) and it worked OK. When I helped upgrade his next PC (Pentium II 350, IIRC) from Win98, which came with it, to Windows 2k (don't even mention WinME to me, I read /. for cripes sake!) it needed a bunch more RAM, but overall was alright. Later desktops that shipped with 98SE or ME took Win2k fine and later XP. In my job I end up installing XP on all sorts of older hardware, and I can confidently say that any PIII 500MHz or better with 256MB+ of RAM can run XP sufficiently (especially tweaked a bit). I've even seen customers using XP on PII's- not that I'd try this: http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm or anything, but my point is last year the latest-and-greatest Microsoft OS could run on much earlier equipment. Enter Vista: the first OS where 99% of the computing population is forced to upgrade everything in their case, or buy a new "ready" PC. Plus, chances are it will run slower than XP did, with less hardware/driver support, "protection" up the arse to keep you from picking your nose wrong, lack of yadda yadda yadda... what everyone else has been preaching.

2. On a related note, I just built a new PC a few months back, and put XP Pro on it. When asked why not Vista, I replied simply: I just put a new engine in my car. Why attach anchors to the back so it runs just as slow as when I started? Sure, you say, you can run Win98 on your 3GHz box and it'll friggin ZOOM! But think about it. Win98 is obviously impractical; WinXP does pretty much everything we need/want. So you can play the latest games, compile code, Photoshop, whatever, at an amazing speed... or upgrade to Vista and have twice the computing power to acquire the same speed. Huh? Other people have noted the heavy cpu use, stuttering video playback, and lackluster gaming performance.

3. Lastly, a disclaimer: I'm not an Apple Pusher (don't even own one currently- ok, well, my wife does, but it's a G3 in the closet so it doesn't count) but what with the now popular Apple Switch ads both here and in the UK, isn't this a really bad time to introduce something like Vista? Combine that with forcing people to leave XP, and the fact they really have to buy an entire new computer anyway.... pretty GUI? Glassy interface? Oh, hey, Mac has that- has for years, and what do you know- it's fast and stable!

-CPC

They say they are using 8 Mhz processors, but they actually mean 9 Mhz!
OMG NO WAI

Better change the Slashdot title as well!

I installed Windows 2000 on a Socket 5 Pentium 120 with 128MB of ram (I managed to dumpster dive what would have been a small fortune in 32MB FPM simms in 1995 a couple of years ago). It went on with no problems, once I figured out how to get around the fact the computer had no idea how to boot from CD. It ran fine, though it was obviously a bit sluggish. Still, once it booted up I could surf the web fine in Firefox 1.0.

I'm really curious to see what kind of ancient hardware that these guys are going to get Vista to boot on.

While OSX or Windows could "run", they would both be so slow it's unusable.

This picture alone says everything about how well Windows XP can scale.

This picture alone says everything about how well Windows XP can scale.

I'm not sure whether it's fully legal - on the other hand, MS ought to be embarrassed enough about having produced Bob to not sue whoever offers it for download.

So here you go:

MS Bob Download link

windows XP on a 20 megahertz Pentium with 32 megabytes of RAM. http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm