Windows Consumer Preview is a beta release of the new version of Windows, which is codenamed “Windows 8.” Below is a complete overview of the system and hardware requirements for installing Windows 8 on a physical machine. These requirements are for the latest Windows 8 Build released by Microsoft. I will be updating this post with newer system requirements as more official versions of Windows 8 are released. You can get the latest Windows 8 (official) download link here.
Windows 8 System Requirements
The Windows 8 works on almost the same hardware as Windows Vista and Windows 7
- 1 Gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 Gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
- 20 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
- A screen resolution of 1366 × 768
- Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
- Internet access
- Microsoft account is required for some features
- Some features such as touch and Client Hyper-V may require advanced or Windows 8 certified hardware
- Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
In case you don’t know if you system hardware is 32-bit or 64-bit, check out my post: How To Check If Your Windows Operating System/PC is 32 bit or 64 bit.
Notes about installing Windows 8
- You can’t uninstall the Windows 8. To reinstall your previous operating system, you must have restore or installation media.
Install on Windows Vista and Windows 7:
Windows 8 with developer tools
Windows 8 (32-bit or 64-bit)
Clean install only
You can keep accounts, files, and settings
Windows XP
Clean install only
You can only keep accounts and files
A clean install is supported on all builds. You will only receive the full set of installation options when setup is launched in Windows.
To find out how to create a backup for your system before installing Windows 8, check out my post: How To Backup & Restore Windows 7 & Windows Vista.
