June 30, 200521 yr I'm wondering if I can install XP Pro and get decent speeds without blowing up this old computer:233mhz P1 CPU32MB RAM4GB hard diskSome sort of CD-ROM, dunno what it is but it reads CDs I don't intend to do much with it. Basically I'm just going to install PHP on it and use it as a server on my LAN (not online) to test stuff, so I'll probably get rid of all the unimportant stuff like Media Player and such. Just a barebones XP system, sitting in a corner, executing PHP scripts and being controlled with VNC. Think it could handle it? Any tips on making it 'lighter' so it won't be uber-slow?
June 30, 200521 yr 32MB RAM is very little. You need at least 128MB. I've seen a PC with 64MB RAM but it was very slow. None the less, you could try: go to Win98 interface, disable all services you don't need and...it might work. P.S. Why don't you install Win98SE on that machine?
June 30, 200521 yr Author I do have 98SE but it's quite a pain to get it networked to this computer running XP. I also had intended to use it as a sort of 'test machine' for XP-related things.As for RAM, I could borrow some from this computer to bring it up to 64MB during install, then back down to 32. I imagine nLite could get it running on 32MB. Edited June 30, 200521 yr by HyperHacker
June 30, 200521 yr Hi,With a Pentium 1 CPU I doubt that you will be able to install XP anyway. 32 MBytes is defenatly not enough RAM.The slowest PC I ever tried on was a Pentium II 300MHz with 64 MBytes of RAM and it walked not ran.For a Pentium 1 you will need to use Windows 98SE or perhaps Windows Me and even then 32 MBytes would not really be enough.To be honest this sort of spec is now really past all use for Windows. Perhaps a Linux distro would be a better option?Kind RegardsSimon
June 30, 200521 yr Author I have no experience with Linux, doubt I could get anything working. 98 does work but I just don't like it that much.
June 30, 200521 yr You could probably shoehorn Windows 2000 on it. Failing that, it's time to do the decent thing and chuck it in the bin!
June 30, 200521 yr I haven't tried this on a P1, but I have good experiences with upgrading P2 machines to WindowsXP.It will work with 64MB RAM, but you will find it hardly workable. Try to get AT LEAST 128MB RAM. With 64MB your PC will be swapping to a point where it's not fun any more. Long boot times, and long wait times when starting programs. Edited June 30, 200521 yr by enuffsaid
June 30, 200521 yr Well... I have Windows XP installed on my Pentium166 with 96Mb Ram.It´s slow, but it works! So the only problem with your computer is the amount of RAM you have, the CPU would be capable of running it.
June 30, 200521 yr nlite the hell out of your copy of XP and under the tweaks section on the compatability tab tick the "Disable minimum memory requirements" check box. Make sure that you take as much out of XP as possible esp. in regard the to the services. Burn a CD of this and pray hard. If you use BTS driver packs and they work on you machine don't forget to let him know the spec of the machine, i.e. Mobo make etc. cuz it'll beat the Intel 440BX PII chip set which I tried about a month ago.Good luck
June 30, 200521 yr I've got an nLite'ned XPSP2--fully stripped, of course--running on a P166 + 32MB of EDO SRAM (Trident 1MB ISA videocard w/vgasave driver, LOL), but it's not terribly speedy-->My kids use it for games and MS Paint, and it works well enough. I don't know how a machine with these specs would fare on a network, but I'd bet you could run a Linux commandline, DOS, or Win9x pretty well. Edited June 30, 200521 yr by nateklomp
June 30, 200521 yr I got my little PC connected of 166 or 233 MHZ with 128 ram and works perfectly on 2000.2000 consume much less than XP and its practicaly the same base. Linked my computers without any problems
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