4GB Memory not enough to upgrade 20h2 to 21h1 or better?

Question

Tried to upgrade a 4GB 20h2 machine to 21h1. Got a message saying something like hardware did not meet the requirements. Have a paging file. Changed the memory from 4GB to 8GB and the upgrade worked.

So 4GB is the bottom line for WIndows 10 20h2? Upgrading past that requires more memory?

Answer 1

@Stan Kasper
Hi,
RAM requirements for Windows 10 21H1 is 1GB for 32-bit or 2GB for 64-bit.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/windows-10-specifications

In fact, because your computer’s OS uses hardware resources like RAM to run properly, the OS has a significant impact on overall performance. Typically, a newer version of an OS demands more memory than its predecessor. Adding more memory when you upgrade your OS ensures a smoother transition, prevents potential problems, and optimizes the performance of your system.

So it depends on what you want to use it for, for Windows 10, 4GB Ram is not good enough. Minimum 8GB Ram is needed for day to day task.

Hope above information can help you.

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Answer 2

I went back to the event logs to find the exact message that occurs when doing an upgrade from 20H2 to 21H1 and keeping installed apps and it fails due to lack of memory. What is confusing is that the apps I use have minimal resource requirements. And 21H1 will run fine in 4GB. But you get dinged doing the upgrade.