Developer Runs Home windows 7 on a 5 MHz CPU with 128MB of RAM
At the moment, you possibly can’t purchase a brand new x86 processor that runs at beneath 1 GHz, with most mainstream desktop CPUs carrying base clocks which can be effectively over 2 GHz and even within the 3 GHz vary and boosting up a lot larger than that. Nevertheless, again within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, processors that operated at just some MHz had been frequent, with the unique IBM PC clocking in at simply 4.77 MHz itself.
May one run a contemporary Home windows working system on a CPU with such a low clock velocity? Developer and in style YouTuber NTDEV has confirmed that you may, booting and utilizing Home windows 7, which launched in 2009, on a Pentium-S processor that was downclocked to only 5 MHz. That is a full 995 MHz beneath the 2009-era OS’s 1-GHz minimal requirement. The take a look at system additionally had simply 128MB of RAM, which is method wanting Home windows 7’s 1GB minimal requirement.
In a YouTube video (embedded beneath), NTDEV exhibits the system, which is definitely a digital machine working within the 86Box emulator (opens in new tab), boot up into Home windows 7 Final, launch a program which exhibits its 5.00 MHz clock velocity and even run Notepad. By the way in which, in case you comply with the sped-up time counter within the video, you will be aware that it takes greater than 28 minutes for the Home windows 7 desktop to seem!
Within the video, you possibly can see NTDEV energy on his digital machine which POSTs as a Pentium-S working at 50 MHz with a 128MB of RAM. Nevertheless, it has been downclocked to five MHz, a low velocity which NTDEV informed us he achieved by modifying 86Box’s supply code.
NTDEV boots the system and is given a selection to make use of Regular or Secure modes. He chooses Regular mode, nevertheless it really boots into Secure mode, displaying the entire .sys, .dll and .exe recordsdata as they load. NTDEV informed us that, as a part of the hacking course of, he edited the BCD (boot configuration knowledge) so even selecting Regular mode leads to Secure mode booting.
To get Home windows 7 as well and run with such a gradual CPU, NTDEV informed us that he needed to disable a ton of system sources, which he achieved by working Secure mode and disabling most drivers and providers to the purpose the place solely three providers are working at boot. He additionally needed to tackle a problem with the logonUI.
“When going beneath 50MHz the login display (logonUI) would not wish to load,” NTDEV informed us. “So in an effort to get to a command immediate, I needed to put the OS in a pseudo-OOBE state by modifying the registry and deleting every part within the c:windowssystem32oobe folder, in order that it would not load.”
The OOBE (out of the field expertise) is the one you get when working a Home windows installer and it would not have a Begin menu or Home windows Explorer. Nevertheless, the command immediate is normally out there throughout OOBE and you may normally get it by hitting Shift + F10.
We famous that the desktop NTDEV exhibits within the video has no Begin menu, there isn’t any wallpaper and the home windows themselves have a quite simple theme; there isn’t any method Aero transparencies would work right here. To launch a program, WCPUID / Actual Time Clock Checker, NTDEV has to kind its shortcut identify into the command immediate. He later does the identical to launch Notepad.
Maybe what’s most spectacular about this complete video is that NTDEV is ready to, at one level, have 4 totally different applications working: the command immediate, WCPUID, Winver (displaying the Home windows 7 model) and Notepad with some textual content in it. So this can be a fairly-stable setting.
NTDEV informed us that he has really run Home windows 7 at a clock velocity as little as 3 MHz, however that it wasn’t practical sufficient to make an attention-grabbing video. He mentioned that he has really run Home windows 7 with as little as 36MB of RAM prior to now, however went with 128MB to make the pattern system not want the web page file (digital reminiscence), however the system really used about 70MB throughout his demo.
The digital machine additionally makes use of so much much less space for storing than the 16GB listed in Home windows 7’s system necessities. NTDEV mentioned that the whole set up makes use of lower than 1GB and the .wim file disk picture for the OS is lower than 350MB.
Now that he is gotten Home windows 7 to run at 5 MHz (and even 3 MHz with much less to do), NTDEV says he is taking a look at methods to get Home windows 10 or Home windows 11 to run on a processor that is slower than 1 GHz. He is already managed to get Windows XP to run at just 1 MHz (opens in new tab).
He mentioned that the 28-minute plus boot time for the 5 MHz Home windows 7 system is way from the slowest he is skilled.
“It is nothing in comparison with Home windows XP on 1 MHz,” he mentioned. “That factor took 3 hours as well!”