We look at the hardware or system requirements for using Windows Server 2025. We also discuss the upgrade paths from other Windows server versions to Windows Server 2025 below.
System requirements for Windows Server 2025
The system requirements for Windows Server 2025 apply to the following editions:
- Windows Server 2025 with desktop experience
- Windows Server 2025 Server core installation
The requirements below also apply to the following editions:
- Standard edition of Windows Server 2025
- Datacenter edition of Windows Server 2025
The system requirements for installing and running Windows Server 2025 are segregated into basis of processor requirements, RAM requirements, Storage requirements and Networking requirements.
Processor requirements for Windows Server 2025
- 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
- Compatible with x64 instruction set
- Support for NX and DEP
- Support for CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW instructions
- Support for Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)
- Support for the SSE4.2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2) instruction set
- Support for the POPCNT instruction
You can use the Sysinternal utlitity of Coreinfo to find out if the CPU is compatible with the minimum requirements for Windows Server 2025.
RAM requirements for Windows Server 2025
- ECC (Error Correcting Code) type or similar type of RAM is required
- Minimum RAM of 512 MB for installing Windows Server 2025 Server core installation
- Minimum RAM of 2 GB for installing Windows Server 2025 with desktop experience
Storage requirements for Windows Server 2025
Computers that run Windows Server must include a storage adapter that is compliant with the PCI Express architecture specification. Servers classified as hard disk drives must not use Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment (PATA) for persistent storage devices.
- The absolute minimum storage space required for Windows Server 2025 is 32 GB.
However, for most practical considerations, the disk requirements would go up as other resources increase. With higher RAM, you could also require a proportionally higher disk space allocation. This is because higher RAM would translate into higher page file size and considerably higher paging.
Networking requirements for Windows Server 2025
The network adapter for Windows Server 2025 must be PCI Express compatible.
- 1 Gbps or higher speed network adapter is required for Windows Server 2025
TPM requirements for Windows Server 2025
Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is required for specific use-case scenarios like Bitlock device encryption, Windows Hello and others, to securely create and store cryptographic keys, and to confirm that the operating system and firmware on your device are what they’re supposed to be, and haven’t been tampered with.
If you do not need these features or services on Windows Server 2025, you can skip the TPM requirements.
The following TPM requirements are needed for Windows Server 2025 (should you want to use TPM 2.0 compatible features):
- Hardware-based TPMs must implement version 2.0 of the TPM specification.
- TPMs that implement version 2.0 must have an EK certificate that is either pre-provisioned to the TPM by the hardware vendor or be capable of being retrieved by the device during the first boot.
- TPMs that implement version 2.0 must ship with SHA-256 PCR banks and implement PCRs 0 through 23 for SHA-256. It is acceptable to ship TPMs with a single switchable PCR bank that can be used for both SHA-1 and SHA-256 measurements.
Rajesh Dhawan is a technology professional who loves to write about Cyber-security events and stories, Cloud computing and Microsoft technologies. He loves to break complex problems into manageable chunks of meaningful information.