XP Upgrade Memory Mismatch

[MidlandDeltic]

Well, I'm still on XP, with no possible means of buying a new PC in the forseeable future. My machine is a Philips Freevents MT2800, Core 2 Duo E64x, with a replacement 1Gb Nvidia graphics card. I have gone to the M$ website, and downloaded their compatibility checker for Win 8.1, which reports insufficient memory and goes no further.

Now I have 2 1Gb sticks in there. Task Manager, Control Panel and Nvidia Settings all show 2Gb of physical memory. Win 8.1 appears to only require 1Gb for 32 bit. I went to the Crucial memory site, and used their checker, which reported only one memory slot in use, and that containing a 32Mb stick!

So I'm stuck. Any ideas on why I am getting different results? Unfortunately, I am stuck with using M$ products due to software I need.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Anything Windows Vista or above really requires 2Gb memory to run.

If your system is currently reporting 2Gb, then it'll report 2Gb for Windows 8, but the Crucial tool just isn't finding your motherboard too well.

The rest of your system sounds suitable for Win8 (broadly)

[PowerDragTrim]

Your system sounds even better for Win7!
You can download it from MS here: Windows 7 Direct Download Links, Official Disk Images from Digital River (http://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/14-windows-7-direct-download-links)

[le Pingouin]

I presume you're meaning the Upgrade Assistant from MS? If you're running WinXP you need to use the checker for Win8 not Win8.1, at least that's what MS says on the web page: Upgrade Assistant: FAQ - Microsoft Windows Help (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-au/windows-8/upgrade-assistant-download-online-faq)

Might explain the inability to run. I'd agree with Mike that from those specs your PC should be able to run Win7 or Win8.

There's no point in downloading Win7 from the suggested site if you don't have a suitable licence key.

[Mac the Knife]

It's hard to find much info about your Philips Freevents MT2800, Core 2 Duo E64x setup, but I'll bet that you can replace your 2x 1GB sticks with equivalent speed 2GB sticks (to a total of 4GB) - and memory is pretty cheap these days.

Win7 will run in 2GB but is happier with 4GB (as is XP BTW)

I don't know why you are getting different results from the test sites, but they do sometimes get it wrong with uncommon setups like the Philips.

I would try to get away from XP if you can - it was never that secure anyway and this is likely to get worse. Win7 is much better in many respects.

Mac

:ok:

[mixture]

You must get away from XP - it was never that secure anyway and it will get worse.

There, fixed it for you. :cool:

[llondel]

There's no point in downloading Win7 from the suggested site if you don't have a suitable licence key.

I would be extremely careful downloading it from anything other than a Microsoft site even if I did have a suitable licence key.

[MidlandDeltic]

Thanks all for the replies so far. I hadn't seen the note re using the 8 rather than the 8.1 M$ upgrade assistant. However, having tried that, it also claims I have insufficient memory. I cannot therefore proceed and purchase the software. My concern is, if I purchase a boxed upgrade and the set-up routine does the same check and comes up with the same result, it will refuse to install (possibly after having formatted the drive, as I believe you cannot do an upgrade as such, it formats and does a fresh install) and I'll be left with a totally non-functional PC.

Yes, more memory could be purchased - but with finances as they are, that would rule out purchasing the software :(

[mixture]

I would be extremely careful downloading it from anything other than a Microsoft site even if I did have a suitable licence key.

Gosh .. that was very diplomatic.

"extremely careful" is putting it far too politely.

People are absolute idiots if they download Microsoft or other commercial software from unofficial sources.

Would be a much better way to put it.

The prospect of trojans, viruses and spyware is very real indeed on torrents and elsewhere. So unless you've got a death wish, you don't go fishing around those parts of the internet.

[Saab Dastard]

Interestingly, Win 8 and above have specific CPU requirements over and above the speed:
If you want to run Windows 8 on your PC, here's what it takes:

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2

If your CPU doesn't support some or all of these, then the highest OS you can run will be Win 7 - which is an excellent MS OS, and probably easier to live with on older systems than 8.

You could check in the BIOS if you need to turn any of these on, but it's possible that the erroneous memory report could be linked to a lack of PAE support on the CPU.

Try downloading and running the equivalent Windows 7 upgrade checker and seeing if that gives the same results.

If I were you I would buy a cheap 2nd hand HDD of 80GB or so (SATA or IDE, whatever is necessary) from ebay and try the install on that. You don't actually need the original disk in the PC - although it's helpful to attach it to transfer settings and data. That's exactly what I did, so I could switch between disks until I was satisfied enough to run with Win 7.

SD