Does Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional have the same minimum hardware requirements?

Answer 1

No, XP has higher requirements then 2000, most notably needing more RAM. Windows 2000 Professional 133 MHz or more Pentium microprocessor (or equivalent). supports up to two processors on a single computer; also supports dual-core computers; 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum. 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM is the maximum; A 2 GB hard disk that has 650 MB of free space. VGA or higher-resolution monitor; Keyboard; Mouse or compatible pointing device (optional). I can tell you from personal experience, it runs great on a 400 celeron, 128 MB RAM, 4 Gb hard drive (but 2000 Pro is 1.5 GB installed). XP Home or Pro 300 MHz CPU, supports up to 2 CPU,s, including Dual-Core. 256 MB RAM, but it will be slow. If you do more then 1 thing at a time (almost everyone does), such as open a word document while Surfing the net, with an anti-virus program running, it will be PAINFULLY slow. I know many people who went from 256 to 512 and could not believe how much faster it was. Consider 512 MB RAM the minimum). 4 Gb HDD (hard drive), and XP will take 1.5 of it (if you have a 15 GB or bigger HDD, XP will take 2.25? GB of it). I tested XP Home on the 400 Celeron; 256 MB; 4 GB hard drive, and it was noticeably slower then the same computer with 2000 Professional. I would say it was a combination of not enough memory and too small CPU (consider 1 Ghz the minimum). For more information, search Google for "2000 requirements" and "XP requirements"