ARCHIVED: For Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, how much memory do I need?

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Note: For security and support reasons, UITS recommends using Windows 2000 Professional or Windows XP Professional, rather than NT Workstation 4.0, on Indiana University's network. Microsoft retired both mainstream and extended support for this version in June 2004, which means security updates are no longer being developed. For more information, see Microsoft's Windows Desktop Product Lifecycle Guidelines page at:

  http://support.microsoft.com/?LN=en-us&pr=lifecycle

If you plan to run multiple applications in Windows NT, you should have at least 64MB of RAM. According to Microsoft, if you plan to run only one application at a time, you can run Windows NT with as little at 16MB of RAM. However, with less than 24MB of RAM, the hard drive will be in constant use, due to memory paging during normal operation. Because of this, it is a good idea to have no less than 32MB of RAM for a useful NT 4.0 workstation. Furthermore, Windows NT will make use of greater amounts of RAM when running multiple applications; therefore, 64MB of RAM is not an unreasonable amount if you plan to run several applications simultaneously.