I want to have a single Windows VM in my Proxmox server for a specific small task which is a solar power monitoring program. I wonder whether Win 7 or 10 would be easiser on the resources. I would prefer Windows 7 but I'd opt for Windows 10 only if it has performance benefits.
Windows 10 has been re-worked from the ground-up including major optimizations the the abstraction layer and the HAL. The windows 10 system has been built with the lowest common denominator in mind, and that is to run on the most basic of hardware. Even ARM can run it.
But doesn't come close if you can run linux instead. Can get a linux compatible version of the software you need?
2 Likes
As @KenPC has already memtoined, W10 should run better - also many spy features of W10 have already bin integrated in W7 as well 
Windows 2016 also has an ultra lightweight version of the core OS if that might suit your fancy.
I though about it but it says on MS website that the minimum memory if ran as a VM is 4GB which is far beyond my maximum panned 512MB~1GB.
This page says 2GB but still too much.
@KenPC unfortunately not. I wouldn't be having this issue if it did.
I actually don't think any modern windows system uses anything less than 2 gigs of RAM since the update to Win7 in ~2014 brought the min requirements to 2 gigs.
Seems that you're right. I'll try server 2016 on 1GB anyway and see if it handles it well.
May as well. Let us know what happens.
The only thing I can think of, these days, that fit into that small amount of ram is damn small linux or something.
if you only need it for a solar power monitoring program just use xp. not like you're going to be using it to browse the web or anytjong
I would've tried running my program on wine if it was possible to pass a serial port to it from linux. But this seems more problematic than it's worth the effort.
That's what I'm doing right now but it doesn't seem safe having a dead OS on my LAN network even if it had no access to the internet especially after the latest attacks.
not only was xp patched for that virus , but if the machine has no internet access it'll be pretty hard to catch a virus that you get from.... the internet
It depends on who you ask. Certainly Windows 10 does have its benefits on the paper but from my real world experience I would prefer Windows 7 over Windows 10 for anything without exception. It is way more stable.