Windows 10 runs on mere 192MB of RAM as part of Twitter user’s ‘fun experiment’
One person managed to get Windows 10 running with less than a fifth of its recommended RAM.
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A person managed to get Windows 10 to run on just 192MB of RAM recently. Twitter user Nori (@0xN0ri) recently played around with Windows 10 and got it running on less than one-fifth of the recommended amount of RAM thatMicrosoft requires(1GB). The feat was accomplished running on Oracle VM Virtualbox off a Dell Inspiron 3670 running Arch Linux, according to what Nori toldTom’s Hardware.
Nori tested running the 32-bit version of Windows 10 on systems with progressively smaller amounts of RAM. Nori started at 512MB and worked down to 192MB. 128MB of RAM led to a blue screen of death and 140MB loaded but didn’t run.
It works!https://t.co/6wotLMV8Ytpic.twitter.com/zyNQqtlVMIIt works!https://t.co/6wotLMV8Ytpic.twitter.com/zyNQqtlVMI— Sakura NØri 🌸 (@0xN0ri)April 2, 2020April 2, 2020
Nori told Tom’s Hardware that the CPU used for testing was an Intel Core i5-8400 with a single core dedicated to the virtual machine. Specifically, the test used Windows 10 Pro x86. According to Nori, no services were disabled and no changes were made to Windows 10 to make it work. They explained to Tom’s Hardware:
It took around three minutes to boot up to the desktop and it’s unusable with the virtual machine file stored on my 7200RPM hard drive… I was only able to get task manager, cmd, and file explorer open on 192MB RAM and the performance was very bad with 15MB free.
Poor performance isn’t too surprising when you’re using less than 20 percent of the required RAM. Nori discussed booting operating systems onto different devices and other projects on theirGithub page. When asked why they did it,Nori saidthat it was a “fun experiment.”
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Sean Endicott is a tech journalist at Windows Central, specializing in Windows, Microsoft software, AI, and PCs. He’s covered major launches, from Windows 10 and 11 to the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT. Sean’s journey began with the Lumia 740, leading to strong ties with app developers. Outside writing, he coaches American football, utilizing Microsoft services to manage his team. He studied broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University and is active on X @SeanEndicott_ and Threads @sean_endicott_.
