How to install Windows 8 on machine with less than 1 GB RAM?

GMan

Banned
Messages
1,851
For Windows 7, there is the ability to hex edit winsetup.dll so that Windows will install to any machine with any amount of RAM. In my online research, I've seen it be said that using the edited winsetup.dll from Windows 7 copied over the existing one for Windows 8 does not work at all.

So my question is, does anyone know which values to edit in Windows 8 winsetup.dll to edit so that it can install well to a machine with less than 1 GB?

My intention here is to get the awareness started with this so a successful solution can be produced.

Thanks for reading.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
I suggest an alternative.

You can avoid any error checking if you bypass windows setup and apply the windows image <mounted iso>\sources\install.wim to a formatted empty drive using imagex.exe, see what I wrote in:

http://www.eightforums.com/installa...ou-setup-your-win-8-install-11.html#post72420

SIW2 reported difficulties when he tried that method though.

Less than 1 GB RAM may require that you boot with WinPE to run the installation via imagex.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
Hey ya, thanks for this. I just woke up not long ago and my brain is not functioning well at all yet haha. When I feel up to it most likely later on, I will check on everything!

I am not completely confident however. If SIW2 is having issues, where is that gonna leave me at? lol

For real though, I learned lots from him years ago just by hanging around.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
My HP nc6320 has 512mb. Windows 8CP installs without any problems. I'm using the "normal" setup methoud.
(BTW: Windows 7 Ultimate also installs without problems).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8-7-XP-98
My HP nc6320 has 512mb. Windows 8CP installs without any problems. I'm using the "normal" setup methoud.
(BTW: Windows 7 Ultimate also installs without problems).

Interesting indeed!

Did you boot to install media and make a custom (clean) install or did you upgrade a previous Windows version?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
No upgrade. Clean install from USB. W7 and W8 both install perfectly on 512mb.
Control Panel/ System/ Installed memory (RAM) says: 512 MB (503 MB usable).
Not sure how this would work on systems with eg. 512 MB minus 64/128 MB shared video RAM.

What did you mean by "Boot to install media"?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8-7-XP-98
What I meant was, did you boot to the Windows installer on DVD or USB stick to install or did you install from within Windows already running?

I tried upgrade installing Windows 8 CP from within Windows 7 SP1. The machine has 512 MB (383 MB usable) and it said that it can not do so.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
OK, thanks for explaining. I didn't do an upgrade install.
Seems to me that if you have 383 MB usable memory (512-128mb shared video RAM, right?), things might run a little tight, specially if you want to install from *within* Windows 7. But I'm no expert in this field.
On my 512 MB (503 usable) system, Windows 7 uses about 313 MB when running. Windows 8 uses about 264 MB when running.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8-7-XP-98
fafhrd, wish me luck. I am remoting right now into the machine with only 512 MB RAM and setting up partitions, downloading the WAIK and I'm going to attempt your methods out. I will be sure to post the results or any difficulties I run into. I plan to do this from Windows 7 C: partition to a new partition I am making now, both on the only HDD.

At the moment, I'm running a nice space defrag so there will be least chance of issues making the new partition with Acronis.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
G'luck GMan.
I have been having fun installing Windows Embedded Standard 8 onto a PC with 640MB RAM. The Image builder runs like a slug on temazepam compared with the corresponding product for Windows 7. You'll be finished before me!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
Let me know how it goes.

I tried the same thing a couple of times.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    7/8/ubuntu/Linux Deepin
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
Awesome!!!

Everything is working and just right now it is making first boot to 8. I had to move the boot files (manually and then bcdedit command) to the D: Windows 8 partition AFTER I placed a boot entry to it. When I tried to boot to 8 before moving the boot files there, it kept telling me that winload.exe is corrupt. I even tried copying my "good" winload.exe from this good Windows 8 PC I am on now and it did not work.

I also marked the new D: partition as active with disk management, while in Windows 7.

I will post more on it, hopefully with screenshots, when I am done.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
Alright, I took a needed break from installing drivers, software and tweaking. This machine (laptop with broken screen attached to external CRT) is a 2.8 GHz (single core, single logical core) P4. It obviously is a little slow but I just know it is going to be faster than Windows 7 when I am done. 7 worked very good on it. The main problem with it is the HDD but it's just the family's internet machine anyway.

It has ATI IGP 9000 graphics and now even has Aero!

The reason it is still slower is because Windows 8 is now obviously near the outer edge of the HDD. When I am done with everything, I am going to delete the Windows 7 partition and then use Acronis to merge them both into 1. This way, all the operating system files will be near the beginning of the drive after a proper defrag.

Drive F: in the screenshot is 4 GB Readyboost.

Seems to be all good stuff. Thanks again for the method!
 

Attachments

  • Capture.JPG
    Capture.JPG
    141.7 KB · Views: 622

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
Give Windows 8 a few reboots and it gets faster, at least, that is my subjective experience. I think that the disk optimizer has to move junk out of the way left by the expansion of the compressed wim, and then the NTFS can then utilize the files properly.

Well done!

Old laptops with broken screens make good servers - after all they have their own batteries which serve as a UPS if there's a power outage. And... they are quiet! I have an old Acer Travelmate with a broken screen with external Drives plugged in - just runs and runs. I now manage everything with remote desktop from my main Windows 8 machine. One thing about preview releases, It will be hard going back to XP on all these machines - that's why I invest some time with Windows Embedded 7 and now 8.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
Yeah, I hear that for sure. I disable all that Windows auto stuff such as defrag or optimize and then just use 3rd party tools. The habit started long long ago with me when I used to rip music videos from tv for the scene. I would do everything under the sun to ensure that frames would not be dropped, so no auto anything starting while capture.

I've gotten to know Windows so well that I literally go to almost all folders it makes and delete Eulas, readmes, included media such as in public folders, log files in various Windows folders like Inf, Software Distribution....you name it, I likely deleted it hahaha. (My first PC with Windows was given to me during Win98 first release, and it had only a 1 GB HDD! I had TI-99/4a and a 64 in the 80s though too, as a little kid.)

One of these days I should make a .bat file. But anyway, it is partially the reason I am able to run Windows decently on very old hardware.

How the heck did you ever figure this method out? Did you see it in Technet or something? I never knew this or even had a clue!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
How the heck did you ever figure this method out? Did you see it in Technet or something? I never knew this or even had a clue!

About a year ago, Microsoft released the ThinPC version of Windows 7, and from its branding it was clear that it was constructed from Windows Embedded packages, so I downloaded the CTP Windows Embedded Standard 7 Sp1 Toolkit and Image Builder Wizard, and started building my own WES7 systems, which run very much leaner than the full Windows 7. The evaluation systems produced run for 180 days, so with 5 rearms, that's over 2 years, unless they are timebombed in some other way. If an educational license can be had, the systems run for 365 days.
Download: Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1 Evaluation Edition - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details


Microsoft kindly supply a lot on learning materials online in the MSDN resources including the 6 modules here:
Embedded Development Tasks |OS Design OS Image Customization | Windows Embedded Standard 7 Top Tasks

Just the Labs features in the modules - 5-10 minute videos of building systems - got me onto the fact that any install.WIM file in a Windows setup iso contains the full sysprepped image of the OS, and all it needs is to be applied to a suitable formatted partition or VHD.

And boy is it painless and quick. On the same machine as the source wim, you have your OS up and running in about 30 minutes. If you like your setup, you can capture the image, using imagex again, and you have a full imaged backup, loaded apps and all.

Just a day or so after the Windows 8 Consumer Preview was released, WES 8 CTP was too, but it is really slow and buggy - I haven't yet plugged together a system which works properly - compared to the WES 7 offering, which I'll stick to for the time being.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
Thanks for the answer. Very interesting! My setup yesterday would have been even quicker but I didn't pay attention like I should have when creating the new partition. I made it logical. After installing using imagex and failing boot, I figured out quickly that I should have made it primary. Simple overlook on my part but with drastic unintended consequences lol.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
I'm not totally clear why your logical volume failed, as long as your system disk with Windows 7 is a primary active partition, all should be well. As you can see, most of my systems, including both Windows 8 (x86 and x64) are on logical volumes within an extended partition. To save space, each system writes its pagefile.sys to the Swap partition, so I save 2.5 GB on each system drive, which is why I am annoyed that Windows 8 has yet another swapfile, swapfile.sys, undocumented, unmoveable in the root of the system drive, and that, together with hiberfil.sys is necessary for fast booting. The way I'd have done it would be to write the hiberfil.sys and the swapfile.sys to the same drive as the pagefile, then delete the pagefile on shutdown. On startup I'd reverse the process, creating the new pagefile. In fact if I had a system reserved volume, I'd be tempted to write all of the swapfiles there, instead of the main Windows drive where all the logs, registry, temporary files and user files go.

diskmgmt.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
which is why I am annoyed that Windows 8 has yet another swapfile

Both of us annoyed at it, along with a good number of forum users here and in my Google search. I'm sure Microsoft has an excellent technical reason and it is useful to a portion of Windows users or maybe all, though.

Yup, the machine I'm on now (my main, P4 3.5 GHz HT) - both Win7 and 8 use the first partition on the "faster" SATA300 attached to a suitable card, and take control of the (same) pagefile at boot. My other 2 HDDs are SATA150 attached to MB - one with 7 and one with 8.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
Back
Top