In a new blog post, Bill Karagounis, a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) group program manager, reiterated the company's goal of shipping Windows 8 with the same system requirements as Windows 7 when it shipped in 2009. Karagounis says this will ensure that people still operating "Windows 7-era hardware" would have the option of upgrading to Windows 8 without having to purchase new machines.

A range of techniques are used to make it a reality, one of which is called memory combining. According to Karagounis, Windows will assess the content of system RAM during "normal activity" to find duplicate content across the entire system memory. When found, duplicates are freed with a single copy retained, freeing up dozens or hundreds of megabytes of memory per system.

To reduce the system memory that is consumed by native services in Windows, Microsoft removed 13 different services and changed a number of others from automatic startup to manual and "Start on Demand." These measures help ensure that a minimum of system memory is consumed from the get-go.

Moreover, the team has worked on various core components of Windows, consolidating them for a smaller overall memory footprint.

Another technique to increase efficiency would be to allow any program to designate memory allocations as "low priority." This is useful for antivirus programs, for example, which typically make one-time allocations of memory they are unlikely to need again. When memory is flagged as low priority, Windows will proceed to reclaim it in the event of any memory pressure in order to make space.

Microsoft is so confident in the various improvements that the company expects that "many machines that predate the Windows 7 release" will run Windows 8. Could Windows 8 have what it takes to finally convince Windows XP users to upgrade?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this blog post at Building Windows 8

Related Articles:
SLIDESHOW: Top 8 features to expect from Windows 8
Microsoft defends decision to kill Start Menu in Windows 8
Secure boot may block Linux from Windows 8