Microsoft’s Nick White blogs about the system requirements for Windows Vista. “We’ve officially released more detail on the system requirements for Windows Vista. These requirements outline what determines whether a PC is categorized as Windows Vista Capable or Windows Vista Premium Ready.” Out of experience I can say these requirements are fairly realistic; the only thing I do not advise is the 512MB for Vista Capable; I’d suggest to up to 1GB no matter what.
Am I the only one who is tired of these “articles” now? This is nothing new and nothing interesting, and it has been discussed and commented on OSNews.com numerous times already.
I think most of you happy because there is a flame/troll seed …
Nevertheless, it is Operating-System related news.
Little late for this announcement now? Vista capable and premim ready computers have been in stores for months now.
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Sure, these are fine if you’re installing Vista fresh. But upgrading from XP? Or an OEM copy with 13 tray icons pre-installed, two pages of add/remove and a copy of Norton 2007 on top? I swear actual percieved computing speed by the regular public is actually going down over time.
Amen. Not to mention, fresh install of Vista? Or preinstalled?
In my experience, the two are very different. My mother’s year old dell with winxp runs OBNOXIOUSLY slow when freshly booted up using the restore cd.
When I install a fresh copy, without all the garbage, it’s as FAST as a brand new computer running a 5 year old operating system should be. Even after installing antivirus, antispyware, and all of the MS Updates.
According to the article you need to have internet access to be Vista Premium Ready. Internet access could be a problem in som high security environments such as hospitals, defence, police etc. At the same time these installations would be the ones in most need of the improved security that Vista is supposed to offer.
Anybody, that have any clue on what they will miss (apart for porn) by not being connected. Are there any Vista functions that will not work? I suppose there will be a probem with WGA and any functionality that depends on that, whatever they might be.
Vista Premium Ready is for OEMs to build to, and for consumers to feel comfortable in what they are buying, what you are saying really makes no sense here.
“Internet access could be a problem in some high security environments”
you do realize that with no internet access your list of potential security threats decreases rather, well, dramatically…
“Internet access could be a problem in som high security environments such as hospitals, defence, police etc.”
Do you want “Vista” to control stroke units and intensive care units? And do you want any “Windows” to “take care” of your personal data? Or control ICBMs via “Internet Explorer”? Or having criminals getting information about your identity?
I think it’s absolutely not acceptable to use any MICROS~1 product in a high security environment. Sorry, but I don’t like the idea of a click’n’drool gaming platform giving criminal individuals the ablility to harm me… maybe I should be modded down for my opinion. 🙂
It’s totally reasonable to have many articles about Vista, as it’s released nowadays.
But, please, PLEASE, stop posting the same shit all day round. Isn’t there anything new to report about Vista? How long are people talking about hardware requirements now? Far too long, too often, in my opinion.
People, it’s Christmas. There is no other news. I will publish an article later today, by the way, so stay tuned.
If these numbers are correct, they’re truly ridiculous. I’ve been unhappy with Linux distros for quite a while now for their ballooning system requirements, but Vista’s numbers top them all. I now live in a third world country, where computers cost as much as 300% of what they cost in the USA, despite the fact that income is approximately 1/10 to 1/30 of average income in the USA. New computers “ready for Vista” will come here, but they’ll be a long time in coming for the majority of individuals and businesses. But even when I was in the USA, there were many people who couldn’t afford or didn’t want to buy an expensive new PC with 1 GB of RAM and a top-end GPU and CPU. They just wanted a stable, secure OS with good hardware support. Linux on the desktop just wouldn’t cut it, because it was too unstable and buggy, had hardware support issues, and required a lot of RAM compared to Windows XP. I know from experience, because I ran it for four years on an old PC before I finally gave up. Windows XP was stable enough, allowed one to get his work done with minimal hassle, had great hardware support, would run quickly on very minimal hardware, and had dreadful security problems. So here comes Vista- claiming to have better security, but it looks like they’ve ruined the system requirements advantage. So in summary, there is no good OS option for poor people.
your points were fine until you started the linux diatribe. All your points are completely opposite of all the experience me, my friends and my company experience with linux. Everything you state about linux we have found with windows when run by a novice.
By the way, linux supports more hardware out of the box than windows XP.
“So here comes Vista- claiming to have better security, but it looks like they’ve ruined the system requirements advantage. So in summary, there is no good OS option for poor people.”
I don’t know which Linux distributions you’ve been dabbling with, but I suggest you wonder over to http://www.distrowatch.com and have another look. Since there are over 700 distributions available; to suite EVERY taste imaginable, I’m sure you can find something suitable to practically any piece of hardware. The beauty of Linux is choice my friend. If you don’t like the ballooning system requirements of the latest KDE or Gnome desktops, then give XFCE, blackbox, or one of the several other “lightweight” Linux GUI’s a try. (Try Googling Linux lightweight desktops” and you’ll find a plethora of information about these highly functional desktop environments / Window managers.) Some lightweight distributions (i.e., Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, etc.) can run in 16 MB of RAM, and off of a USB pen drive no less; if desired. Linux distributions are becoming more and more user friendly (and hardware friendly) with every release. Linux releases occur numerous times per year, not every five or six years as with the case of Microsoft OS’s. Finally, Linux is FREE. Please don’t say that there are no good OS options for poor people. While Microsoft have priced themselves out of this market due to their obsession with anti-piracy and shear greed, Linux and BSD are alive and well and are slowly but surely knocking down every hurdle to their eventual widespread adoption. Please give Linux another look. Good luck.
Edited 2006-12-25 14:58
What do you expect?
That Vista would run of a 486 DX66, with 16mb ram?
They dident make the next generation Windows for the previus generation computers.
If you live in the 3rd world, you will still be able to use vista, just not quite yet. This is natural (as much as it’s sad).
It was the same discussion when XP was out.
I’m not sure which third world country you live in but down in Jamaica where I live I can get a new pc for US$350…That’s no where near the 300% that you speak of. To run most popular OSes comfortably you need 512MB of RAM. There are others that can make do with less but you will have to use a lightweight GUI as stated by my fellow posters above.
Linux is not perfect but if you make wise purchases in terms of hardware you will not have a problem…SLAX and Ubuntu are known to have good hardware support. Especially SLAX for older hardware.pcBSD is also a good bet if you want a UNIX desktop.
As with all OSes you will have to tweak them to get them just the way you want them.
As per Vista, all you need is a compatible graphics card, 512/1024MB RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, a fast processor (800MHz at least), and a suitable motherboard in order to run it. Actually the hard drive size will vary according to the intended purpose of thhe pc so I’ll leave that up to you. Cheers.
Edited 2006-12-25 16:38
Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/technology/25vista.html?ref=techn…
Merry Xmas, Microsoft.
Edited 2006-12-25 15:31
I went out and bought a laptop christmas present for my wife because her old toshiba has a unknown fault that is stopping proper HD booting (data is still there, but will not reboot without going back to original HD image).
So, after best buy couldn’t tell me what the vista “upgrade for free” deal was, I went to another store, where they had all the manufacturer’s policies laid out (Future shop in Canada, ironically owned in full by Best Buy, and this future shop was 2 minute walk away!)
Anyways, I couldn’t tell what was Vista premium ready or not. Some had stickers, most didn’t. I knew that 1 gig of ram was good, but that was it.
If it wasn’t for the store having open and accessable wireless internet access (which is a bad idea really!), allowing me to research the graphics chip, and then download the vista advisor program, I would not have been sure……as it was, one of the lowest cost laptops WAS premium ready, although not labeled that way. So, I left with it!
But, it would seem even the mfgs / retailers could care less about vista at this point, from all the information that was out there. The only sign I really saw that the mfg are getting ready is that Windows Media Center was on a lot of pcs that didn’t need the features, presumably so the buyer can upgrade to the premium vista, not the crippled basic version.
It is not that the likes of Best Buy can’t tell you what PC is Vista Premium Ready. It is that they don’t want to tell you.
Why?
They have lots of OLD stock which they need to clear off the shelves so that it can be replaced by more expensive stuff that all carry the Vista Ready sticker.
Here in the UK, several Major PC outlest are heavily discounting PC’s especially laptops. These are uaually single core centrinos, integrated graphics and 512Mb RAM. Yes they will run Vista but not Aero.
I predeict that by this time next month all the PC Outlets will be pushing PC’s running Vista what will cost considerably more than their current base stock items. Higher ticket price = more Profit (especially for Microsoft)
They will just have to suffer the irate customers who return their PC’s saying it won’t run Aero.
My Fiancee wanter a new laptop for Christmas. I persuaded her that thiswas a bad idea at the moment. She will continue to use her 3yr old Dell until her birthday in July when I hope the market has settled down somewhat and it is easier to find out exactly what PC’s are truly Vista Compatible.
If your going to play games on Vista dont even think about it with 512Mb of ram. Games like HL2, farcry will take agers to load and even with 768mb it’s still painful.
Yes i’ve tried it and believe me it’s very slow loading, HL2 was terrible and only just loaded but was unplayable for a time.
Edited 2006-12-25 18:45
This happens every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, they make everyone upgrade their hardware to use it. I could see people doing this in the past because before Windows XP every consecutive Windows release was a slight improvement offer the last, but still junk over all. Windows XP was finally a really usable and stable operating system, and that’s what everyone wanted all along. I am a system builder for my family and friends and I will not be installing Vista on any computer until I absolutely have to. Instead I will continue to install Windows XP (if it ain’t broke don’t spent tons of money to upgrade) or Linux Mint (Ubuntu) and I’ve been recommending to everyone to do the same.
Sorry for doublepost, the next posting, please. 🙂 Can’t imagine how this could happen…
Edited 2006-12-25 22:25
“This happens every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, they make everyone upgrade their hardware to use it.”
Taking advantage of new hardware is good, really, but there’s a problem you can see in actual development: The quotient SPEED = HARDWARE / SOFTWARE seems to stay the same. A new Linux distribution or “Vista” on a new PC with C2D and 1024 MB RAM runs as fast as, let’s say, Geoworks Ensemble on a 386DX/40 with 8 MB RAM. So there’s no real speed gain. If you use “old fashioned software” on new hardware you’ll be surprised how fast it is. You can even see people running apps on a 300 MHz P2 with 256 MB RAM with BSD as fast as actual apps run on “Vista” with a new PC – and they don’t care, because it works. Never change a working system. 🙂
“I could see people doing this in the past because before Windows XP every consecutive Windows release was a slight improvement offer the last, but still junk over all.”
Remember when “Windows ’95” was released? Everyone thought a new keyboard with the “Windows keys” is needed, but in fact, nearly nobody uses them. Can you imagine how hard it is to get a notebook without these space wasting keys? Or a regular 102 key keyboard with a wide space bar?
“I am a system builder for my family and friends and I will not be installing Vista on any computer until I absolutely have to. Instead I will continue to install Windows XP (if it ain’t broke don’t spent tons of money to upgrade) or Linux Mint (Ubuntu) and I’ve been recommending to everyone to do the same.”
Recommended everyone to buy “Windows XP” retail? 🙂 Stay with Ubuntu, it’s surely a better solution. (I’ll continue installing FreeBSD and Solaris/x86 and recommending buying a Mac in most cases.)
You’ll soon encounter a problem (I hope you won’t): Users are not happy with this “old crappy XP” because there’s something new available. “I want to run new games!” or “This looks so old, we have it at work, I want something new at home!” will be things you’ll hear. Furthermore, what about driver availability and interoperability (as far as you can use this term according to MICROS~1 products)?
But I agree with you, “Windows XP” will stay on the stage for soame years until everyone (haha) has a “Vista” capable PC. Most people don’t see a need to invest in new hardware and software because what they have is still working. And if you install an old “Windows XP” on a new PC, maybe you can really enjoy how fast your hardware can be. “Vista” will be interesting for “Windows” interested people at the moment. Time will tell if home or corporate users will adopt.
A lot of this is due to lazy programmers or badly optimized code. Think of it this way, back in the early 90’s with the Amiga and Atari ST, we had a whole 8mhz of computing power, 512KB (yeah, back when half a meg of ram was a lot) and yet people still got work done, and things were very snappy and worked great.
Since we had a standard hardware platform back then, there was time for programmers to learn all the little optimization tricks, so they could do things that even the original hardware designers didn’t intend.
Part of the problem of the IBM compatible PCs that hurt us even to this day is that there is no real standard platform to program and optimize for. Plus the hardware is moving so fast that developers can’t anymore. Windows should fix that with standard APIs, but it doesn’t. Everything keeps getting bigger and more bloated.
A very good example of horrible optimizations in a program is Battlefield 1942. When it first came out there were many support posts about bad performance on ‘high-end’ systems, and good performance on ‘low-end’ systems, but it wasn’t consistent anywhere. Patches that came out afterwards had fixed most of the issues, but still it makes one wonder what was going on.
More than likely most people won’t worry too much about upgrading to Vista unless they are people who read OSNews or other computer related sites. Most people as others have stated, will only use Vista if they buy a new computer that is pre-installed with it.
I agree with the original poster of this thread, I won’t be installing Vista on any of the computers that I build for people.
“This happens every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, they make everyone upgrade their hardware to use it.”
Taking advantage of new hardware is good, really, but there’s a problem you can see in actual development: The quotient SPEED = HARDWARE / SOFTWARE seems to stay the same. A new Linux distribution or “Vista” on a new PC with C2D and 1024 MB RAM runs as fast as, let’s say, Geoworks Ensemble on a 386DX/40 with 8 MB RAM. So there’s no real speed gain. If you use “old fashioned software” on new hardware you’ll be surprised how fast it is. You can even see people running apps on a 300 MHz P2 with 256 MB RAM with BSD as fast as actual apps run on “Vista” with a new PC – and they don’t care, because it works. Never change a working system. 🙂
“I could see people doing this in the past because before Windows XP every consecutive Windows release was a slight improvement offer the last, but still junk over all.”
Remember when “Windows ’95” was released? Everyone thought a new keyboard with the “Windows keys” is needed, but in fact, nearly nobody uses them. Can you imagine how hard it is to get a notebook without these space wasting keys? Or a regular 102 key keyboard with a wide space bar?
“I am a system builder for my family and friends and I will not be installing Vista on any computer until I absolutely have to. Instead I will continue to install Windows XP (if it ain’t broke don’t spent tons of money to upgrade) or Linux Mint (Ubuntu) and I’ve been recommending to everyone to do the same.”
Recommended everyone to buy “Windows XP” retail? 🙂 Stay with Ubuntu, it’s surely a better solution. (I’ll continue installing FreeBSD and Solaris/x86 and recommending buying a Mac in most cases.)
You’ll soon encounter a problem (I hope you won’t): Users are not happy with this “old crappy XP” because there’s something new available. “I want to run new games!” or “This looks so old, we have it at work, I want something new at home!” will be things you’ll hear. Furthermore, what about driver availability and interoperability (as far as you can use this term according to MICROS~1 products)?
But I agree with you, “Windows XP” will stay on the stage for some years until everyone (haha) has a “Vista” capable PC. Most people don’t see a need to invest in new hardware and software because what they have is still working. “Vista” will be interesting for “Windows” interested people at the moment. Time will tell if home or corporate users will adopt.
This happens every time Microsoft comes out with a new OS, they make everyone upgrade their hardware to use it.
Look, it’s a fairly constant fact that, if you use modern operating systems, they’re going to outrun existing hardware over time. And it isn’t just a Windows issue. It affects all platforms. For example, getting many Linux distros to run on hardware from even a few years ago often doesn’t work without stripping things down in ways that obviate the usefulness of the later versions. Complaining about the growth of software is like complaining about taxes and aging: It’s kind of pointless. Nobody can “make you upgrade”. You have a free will. If your current platform works for you, use it.
I agree with what you are saying. I don’t expect newer versions of Windows to run well on ‘run of the mill’ computers. I think you may have missed my point though. First of all I wasn’t complaining about anything, I was just letting people know that I plan not to use Vista until XP has truly outlived it’s usefullness and I am recommending that everyone do the same. I just don’t see the point of normal people upgrading their computers or buying a new ones just so they can run Vista when XP still works just fine with the computer they already have. Before XP people continued to upgrade to newer versions of Windows mainly for the marginal improvements in stability, but now that we have Windows XP, that’s very stable and works relatively well, why fix something that isn’t broken? I say save your money and stick with XP for as long as it still works for what you use your computer for, or better yet, upgrade to a Linux OS (I recommend Linux Mint).
Thanks for the clarification. That’s a good strategy. It also has the added benefit of allowing you to evaluate Linux down the road to see whether it’s a better choice on new hardware.
Big deal. Really soo what?
It’s a two way street, manufacturers need to sell more machines to stay profitable and MS delivers the goods. Classic “you sets them up, i knocks them down”.
Have you ever considered that MS allows you to get techs last iteration for a discount? With manufacturers trying to get vista ready pcs out the door, smart shoppers can save a bundle on “outdated” pcs.
So what if you will never run Vista, who cares.. consider the fact that your distro of choice/*BSD/XP-2K/BEOS/etc will run faster on slightly newer hardware. If it felt adequate on a p3 or early p4, think about the speed on a centrino or low-end core duo/amd x2 … .
Happy Holidays people.
Shop wisely.