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Microsoft Releases Vista Hardware Requirements

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-know-you've-been-waiting-with-baited-breath dept.

Digital Inspiration writes "CNet reports that Microsoft has kicked off a 'Get Ready' campaign aimed at helping customers prepare for Windows Vista. The site also includes an Upgrade Advisor tool to help people determine just how Vista-ready an existing PC is." From the article: "The marketing programs and upgrade tool are designed to ease some of the uncertainty around Vista well ahead of the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons, the two biggest PC selling times of the year. Vista had long been expected to arrive by the 2006 holidays, but Microsoft said in March that it would not arrive on store shelves until January."

8 of 591 comments (clear)

  1. Bah! by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From tfa:
    Premium Ready [aero, etc ready -wmf] machines need a 1GHz processor, 128MB of graphics memory, 1GB of system memory, a 40GB hard drive and an internal or external DVD-ROM drive.
    I run os x on my early g3/250 powerbook (with 160MB ram) and linux on an old 90mhz pentium classic (w/128MB).

    On both, things run perfectly, with all gui features, XGL, aqua effects, etc etc.

    (ducks!)

    Seriously - 1GB ram (512MB for low end installs) seems like an awful lot to me....
    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
    1. Re:Bah! by alx5000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What makes me jump is the HDD requirements.... 40 GB total and 15 GB free? Are they kidding??

      My current Windows folder uses 1.53 GB and is installed in a 6GB partition... Is there such a jump here as to justify so much HDD hunger? What will it be used for? Swap memory? Fonts??

      So this thing is gonna drain up my graphic card while it's eating my hard disk? No thanks. I'll stick with XP (If only I could go back to 98....)

      --
      My 0.02 cents
    2. Re:Bah! by Serapth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Seriously - 1GB ram (512MB for low end installs) seems like an awful lot to me.... For whatever reason Microsoft is high-balling these figures. I ran Vista on my rather standard laptop ( Amd 64 3ghz, 1gig, craptastic nvidia card and a 5400rpm hard drive ) and to be honest, it was snappier on that machine then it was on the XP install it replaced. This was a few months back, so I have to (hope) the performace has improved since.

      Seriously, you turn off all the new eye candy(which you can do) and I believe Vista outperforms XP in most cases. The TinFoil hat wearing part of me almost wonders if part of this is simply a deal Microsoft has struck with OEMs like Dell. The higher the system requirements appear to be, the more likely a user is to buy a new PC. If the user buys a new PC Microsoft makes another OEM Vista license sale. Win - Win... well except the consumer that is.

    3. Re:Bah! by Vancorps · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Sounds like you should read more closely. Those are specs for all features turned on and are the recommended configuration. Vista already works on much less hardware than that.

      Interestingly enough I know that Vista works on processors much slower than 800mhz so I imagine there is quite a bit of padding in there. With minimal effort I can setup a responsive Vista box with less than 512megs of ram. MS is just playing it safe here saying that people with these specs will be happy with the performance out of the box. People with less will have to tweak to get themselves where they want to be. Like me running XP on a 400mhz P2 with 64megs of ram. Sucked out of the box, but I got it fairly responsive in short order. System profiling is a good thing, if you have a slow machine automatically shut off the stuff that isn't needed. That is one good feature with Vista. Not perfect since the other stuff shouldn't be running anyways but its a desktop OS so its intended to be as friendly as possible out of the box which means leaving a lot of stuff running.

      As for your other examples, let's see you run the latest release of KDE with all the bells and whistles on a Pentium 90. Not gonna happen, not even close. The OS X comparison at least compares OSes with similar graphics capabilities.

      We'll grant OS X is more efficient though Vista does quite a bit more in terms of management and monitoring so the comparison is still a little off.

    4. Re:Bah! by maynard · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That Sun 3/50 had a megapixel display. And a Sun3/60 with a CG24 card could handle megapixel in 24 bit color. Resolution was 1152x900, BTW. Though for one running a 3/60 with a cg24 card should up the RAM to 16MB. As for the rest of the stuff, Gnome et all, many old-timers consider that extra cruft a waste of RAM. X ran just fine in what most today would consider ridiculously low RAM space.

      Note that in 1988ish the common ram chip on the market was still the 256Kb (8 for 256KB) 41256. 1Mb RAM chips were still new and expensive. To get 8MB of ram in one of these systems meant 64 1Mb RAM chips, all of which consumed power. A lot of power. And a lot of money.

      You're just spoiled. :)

  2. Ummm... by xeon4life · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it just me, or is having stringent hardware requirements for the OPERATING SYSTEM kind of ridiculous?

    --
    Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
  3. not gonna work - should give out coupons instead by shr3k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How many people will buy Vista-ready PC's but not actually bother to buy it when it comes out? Too many. Non-technical types who make up a good number of Windows users will not bother to upgrade past what they get with their computer at purchase time.

    Unless MS bundle coupons for Vista with Windows XP this buying season, they can forget about people making any effort to do buy it and do the upgrade.

  4. Upgrade Advisor itself requires... by abb3w · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Windows XP to run, and won't install on Windows 2K systems. Hrmmmm. How helpful.

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.