I'm fixing up an older box for a friend, and he's interested on using Windows 7 over XP because mostly all he uses it for is messaging and internet. I told him how much better the feel of 7 is over XP.
It's a P4 3.2 GHz with a 128 meg ATI x550 card, 2 gigs of RAM and 80 gigs of HDD space.
Would it chug on this machine? A slightly longer boot up is fine.

The way I've seen it run on slightly older laptop than mine makes me think it'd chug more than every single metal band in existance combined.

It should be fine.

It runs on Atom netbooks...I think it'll be fine. System requirements only call for 1Ghz / 1Gb.

Well fine is one thing, but will he be able to use the new features (like Aero) without the system dieing? Not much point upgrading if he won't.

Aero needs a 128mb dx9 card. He'll likely be just fine.

Yeah, I have it on a P4 2.8/1GB/6600gt, runs great.

Hey my system is about half that (except for memory and disk space) and 7 runs OK, and it would be great for just internet. Only problem is games run horrible since CPU has always been a bottleneck for me and 7 doesn't make it any better. So it's XP for me.

[Edit: This is with Aero Glass too, Glass doesn't affect performance in game or out, again, because the GPU isn't the bottleneck on my system.]