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https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/visual-studio-2015-system-requirements-vs.aspx

1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)

Does it mean the host requires 1.5GB and will probably use 0.5GB and allow visual studio to run in a 1GB virtual machine?

That is very little for the host, since Windows 7 itself on the host is said to require 1GB.

Looking at a similar question here, the questioner did not have that in mind and so didn't request an answer to that in any answers.

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  • I have edited it to make it clearly more specific, than that other question
    – barlop
    Jul 22, 2015 at 9:47

2 Answers 2

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The basic math stems from that Visual Studio on the host requiring 1GB includes 0.5GB for Windows and 0.5GB for Visual Studio.

In a VM you have 0.5GB for host Windows 0.5GB for virtual Windows and 0.5GB for Visual Studio.

Those are minimums. I personally would not recommend running either Windows or Visual Studio without at least double those numbers in normal desktop use.

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  • MS itself says Windows 7 requires 1GB and VS itself 1GB. So together they should not each be halved. That's the problem with "basic math", it means Microsoft is contradicting its own stated requirements, not just contradicting what you personally would do
    – barlop
    Jul 22, 2015 at 12:10
  • I don't see the contradiction. I don't see anything that says VS requires 1GB to itself. I don't see anything in your link that says Windows 7 requires 1GB to itself either. The requirements page you link states VS requires a machine with 1GB of RAM total, not 1GB of free RAM or 1GB on top of that used by Windows.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Jul 22, 2015 at 12:22
  • VMs aside windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/products/… Windows 7 system requirements 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit) Though re VS itself, i'll correct myself, we don't know how much VS itself needs. This page says VS requires 1GB RAM I don't know if that means total or just what VS may easily consume and thus requires for itself.
    – barlop
    Jul 22, 2015 at 12:35
  • I still don't see a contradiction. VS requirements are (simplified) broken down into 0.5GB for Windows and 0.5GB for VS. Windows requirements are broken down into 0.5GB for core Windows and 0.5GB to allow for actually running software on Windows. Rather than contradicting, they agree exactly. It would be illogical to publish requirements for VS that assume it is running without an OS, or requirements for Windows that only allow users to stare at a blank desktop.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Jul 22, 2015 at 12:45
  • 1
    this q might get closed, but i'd suggest also posting your answer over here superuser.com/questions/723810/…
    – barlop
    Aug 4, 2015 at 22:00
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I’m not clear what you’re asking that isn’t covered in the other question, but let me throw some darts at it:

  • Microsoft isn’t in the business of selling computers, so they have no interest in telling you how big and resourceful a machine that you need to run their software comfortably.
  • They’re in the business of selling software, so they have an interest in making their software not look like resource hogs.  So, when they say “hardware requirements”, it’s probably safe to assume that they mean bare minimum hardware requirements — as in, “If you have anything less than this, the software quite probably will not run at all.”
  • This seems a little unlikely, but maybe they’re saying that VS requires so little memory that you can run it on a 1 GB machine running Windows 7, even though Windows 7 “needs” 1 GB by itself.  Maybe their engineers say, “The bare minimum for running Windows 7 is 0.7 GB,” and the marketers say, “OK, we’ll say that the hardware requirement for Windows 7 is 1 GB.”  And then the engineers say, “Visual Studio, by itself, needs 0.3 GB.”  You can see where that leads.
  • Nobody ever said that the host would be running Windows.  Maybe they’re saying, “1 GB of RAM is the bare minimum for the machine that’s running VS on Windows 7.  If that machine is a virtual machine, then, even with a stripped-down version of Linux or a bare-metal hypervisor as your host, 1 GB of silicon memory isn’t going to cut the mustard.  You’ll need a bare minimum of 1.5 GB on your iron&copper&silicon&plastic host machine to be able to run VS on Windows 7 in a VM.

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