Microsoft has revealed the minimum requirements a PC will need to run its forthcoming Windows Vista operating system, and to be branded ‘Vista Capable’ and ‘Vista Premium Ready’.
A ‘Vista Capable’ PC will require at least an 800MHz processor, 512MB of system memory, a DirectX 9 capable graphics card, a 40GB hard drive with at least 15GB of free space, a DVD drive, and audio and internet capabilities.
The only extra requirements for a ‘Vista Premium Ready’ PC are a 1GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor, 1GB of Ram and a graphics card with 128MB of onboard memory capable of supporting Windows Aero2.
An Aero2 compatible card is a DirectX 9-class graphics processor that supports WDDM, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel, and with enough memory to support the desired screen resolution.
This comes as a surprise to a lot of people who have been talking about how Vista will need a bunch of new hardware, especially to companies like Intel and AMD who were counting on it to boost sales.
Basically people with a pc just a few years old might only need to change their graphics card and maybe throw in some more memory.
Still, I wonder why the hell this version of Windows needs 15GB of hard disk space? That’s incredibly huge for an operating system.
I wonder if those one live cd operating system fanatics will be able to get anywhere near this one.
And why isn’t there a version that is stripped down from the extra fancy graphical user interface, like with Windows XP? So that people can choose to upgrade their graphic card at their own time.
Update: “If you arent lucky enough to have a WDDM-capable video card, your experience with Windows Vista will be at least as good, if not better than, your experience with Windows XP.” — Barb Bowman, Microsoft.
I stand corrected. Microsoft did think about people with older graphics cards. Thank you Swifty.
But then again, it wouldn’t be Microsoft if it did that, would it now?
I don’t agree when you seems to said that vista works only with “the extra fancy graphical user interface” ,because even with an old video card we could had good exeperience as they said:
“…your experience with Windows Vista will be at least as good, if not better than, your experience with Windows XP…”
source: https://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/web/expert/bowman_vistapreview.mspx
VISTA stands for Viruses, Intrusions, Spywayres, Trojans, Adwares. As it’s not enough, we have to buy luxurious hardware in addition to the license.
Do you know it? Fedora is free!
Swifty, thanks for the correction 😉
Swobodin, come on, you’re being too harsh on the big MS. Anti Spyware and Adware companies are actually afraid they’ll be put out of business by Vista because of it’s spyware and adware control.
And yeah, of course I know Fedora, I also know that you use Ubuntu 😛 Shame on you, lol…
It seems like up to now Microsoft is showing the major capabilities of its newest windows, and that’s why we’re talking about *big* minimal requirements…
anyway… when talking about Linux, i’d like to say that in addition to its strangling enhanced security, it does not run on every machine, and especially the newest one.
WinVista September CTP runs on a my P4 1.8, 512 MB, 40 GB, Nvidia 5500 256MB AGP 4x, i845, an old classic config…
and i’ve also installed it on my Toshiba M70-211, it worked perfectly, while Fedora Core 5 refused even to boot…
*gasp* seems like some one has a bad computer unlike me, who is the best at every thing ‘n I see no reason why you shouldent go out and go buy a mac and maybe spend an extra 2000$ on something that doesnt even match my friends pc that he baught for 250$ I am a video gamer and spent 1500$ on my computer and it is 100 times better then any mac on the market, so you see i am in love with vista because it means direct x 10 (w00t) and that means good games and that makes me happy but for some one like you, that does not know the meaning of a smart deal, would probably believe it wize to buy mac rose or w/e they call it these days and w/ the money you like to think you save, you could maybe buy 30 copies of photoshop, because that the only real program that runs on mac (sorry to maya fans but im making a statement) so yes good buy a mac and dont care about vista, and to all you odd people who are scared about virus stuff, you are just out of place because i have plenty of friends who pirate stuff and do other illegal activities and dont pick up any viruses and all they have is that avg or w/e program
the moral of the story is:
buy vista, u need a new video card? ok, wait 1-2 months buy a card (after the 2007 releace of vista) might want one of the new fancy pancy geforce ones or , i do believe, that ati has got something good coming out because of their huge deal not too long ago
good luck 😀
I have looked all over the web but have not found a place to buy this graphics card… are they only releasing it with new factory built computers?
-J
I think you don’t need to buy extra hardware, because I booted it on my Windows 98, & my DOS machine and it work just it is.