Key Takeaways
- A project successfully put Windows XP on an Intel 486 processor.
- Dietmar’s efforts bridged the 10-year gap between i486SX and XP to create something impressive.
- Even though it’s in German, you can download Dietmar’s project on Archive.org.
One of the biggest gripes people have with Windows 11 is how strict it is with hardware requirements. If you own an older Windows 10 PC and want to upgrade, Microsoft won’t let you, forcing you to find other ways to get Windows 11 installed. As it turns out, the older operating systems were a bit more malleable, as proven by this cool project that puts Windows XP onto an Intel 486. Trust us; the feat is more impressive than you may first think.
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Getting an old Windows XP system running on an even older Intel 486
As spotted by Tom’s Hardwarethis passion project is the idea of Dietmar on the MSFN forums. Since March 2024, Dietmar has been making posts detailing their progress in getting Windows XP to run off of an Intel 486SX. If that doesn’t mean a lot to you, you’ll know why it’s a big deal once you learn that the i486SX came out in 1991, while XP released in 2001 – a 10-year distance between them. That’s a slightly longer distance than Windows 8 and Windows 11’s release dates.
Windows XP’s system requirements alone showed that the process was going to be rough. In the above screenshot, we can see that Dietmar got the processor running at 159.71MHz of power, but Windows XP wanted 233MHz. Still, that didn’t stop Dietmar from doing a deep dive on both the i486SX and Windows XP to find a way to get them to play nice. Fortunately, his efforts were successful, and you can read all of his progress in the above link.
If this news has got you thinking about digging out that old processor you kept in the attic for some reason, you can grab Dietmar’s finished product on Archive.org. It only comes in German, but to be fair, that’s a small price to pay for such a cool feat.