Half of PC's not ready for Vista

Published on April 7, 2006 By Island Dog In Personal Computing

How surprising this is. 2gig of RAM for "added" performance.

"While nearly every current PC will be able to run Windows Vista, only half will be able to take full advantage of all of it's features, a recent study by research firm Gartner suggests. In turn, the firm is urging IT managers to take caution when ordering new PCs.

Today's average processor and hard drive should be sufficient to install and use Vista, Gartner says. However, a newer graphics card is likely required if the user wishes to take advantage of the Aero user interface, and the computer should have at least 1GB of memory installed for the operating system to run smoothly."

http://www.betanews.com/article/Report_Half_of_PCs_Not_VistaReady/1144422884

Comments (Page 1)

Adamness

on Apr 07, 2006

I wonder how this compares to when XP came out. Or any other OS for that matter.

Corky_O

on Apr 07, 2006

I believe there is a "Optimization" step in the building of a Microsoft (or any good software) product, which focuses on providing the best support base for consumers and company alike.

It is still quite early to make any concrete statements on what current mainstream machines will and will not run Vista with full functionality.

Drop125

on Apr 07, 2006

Simple...People want more features running quickly at their fingertips...If you dont juice up the horspower it will run slower and seem like a crappy choice...It's only logical to have a high system requirment to support all the things that will have to be running in the background for better speed and launching time...Thi9nk how fast a 1gb 3Ghz HT proccesor starts up and loads apps....then try it on a 2Ghz P4 with 512...Not even comprable...So it should require more power...

DJBandit

on Apr 07, 2006

The funny thing is that most people want more power, regardless what they do on their PCs. Of the people that I know who use PC's, most always complain how slow their PCs are when just looking at Email, playing simple games or chatting online. Even with DSL the PCs are still to slow for them, imagine if they worked with video and audio editing tools or played more graphical games like Halo 2.

So what is the problem with needing a more powerful system to run Vista? More money for new parts? Hell, everything drops price so fast now a days that by the time Vista is out, chances are you would pay as much for a new system then than you would for it now.

Regardless if they're PC geeks or amatures, they all want more power and better performance. Microsoft is just taking advantage of it.

Right now, there are PC's out there that are more powerful that what XP needs to run smoothly. If they can afford that then I don't see the problem.

bakerstreet

on Apr 07, 2006

Eventually it won't just be power that is the issue, but whether you have the TPM for the DRM requirements. They're dragging their feet on Vista last I heard, so perhaps it will be the next release, but eventually hardware DRM will be a requirement as well.

I use a 266 laptop/32 megs of ram and it doesn't seem slow to me for just email, surfing, etc., and it streams music from the net without a hiccup. I admit that for gaming people are beginning to need more advanced rigs, but for the tasks mentioned in #4 you can go back a long way and still be comfortable. The problems with slow computers are malware and idiotic programs runnning in the background 99% of the time.

The real annoyance will be the people that buy machines in the months running up to the Vista release who find that their machines aren't even upgradable to the Vista standards.

TYCUS

on Apr 07, 2006

2gig of RAM for "added" performance

and i thought that when i added to my pc 1 Gb more it was goin to get even more faster, now i have to buy an other one?!?

NO WAY! i'll keep my Xp system

...

...thankx for the info, Island Dog!

oh! i forget to mention that i get the news that Halo 2 for pc would come out just for Windows Vista!!! imagine that! now, if whant to buy that game, i also have to get another Gb., to prevent that my pc freeze.., gg, Bill Gates is an evildoer man

mgosh

on Apr 07, 2006

Heh- Makes me want to switch over to Novel and Linux and just dump Windows altogether. There always has been a jump-up in technology requirements evertime a new O.S. comes out from Microsoft. I swear its like he owns Intel/AMD stock.

on Apr 07, 2006

My homework laptop has been converted into Ubuntu OS. It has some problems but hey it's free and works very well. What made it work so well is ndiswrapper. It enabled my brand new Pre-N wireless card to work.

Dr Guy

on Apr 07, 2006

How surprising this is. 2gig of RAM for "added" performance.

People ask why we need 64bit computers. There is your answer. The physical limitation of 32bit is 4gb. The OS and features are going to push us to 64bit. AMD has a head start. Intel better catch up now.

Corky_O

on Apr 07, 2006

Intel is currently working on the "Conroe" chip family and they have successfully put "quad-core" on the die.

There will be a desktop chip, notebook chip, and a server chip. These are due out 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2007, and all have some level of advanced power management incorporated into the chip (similar to the Pentium "M" technology).

We should see more documentation on this family (probably around Vista release, or so).

I believe AMD is working on multiple core chips, but I have only seen a passing article on the Intel "Conroe" family. Intel is hoping to prompt hardware manufacturers to build better power management capable hardware devices that can interact with the new direction for power concerns.

Not sure if this will be 64 bit, 32 bit, or both though.

Corky_O

on Apr 07, 2006

Oops, here is the article I read http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6047044.html

bakerstreet

on Apr 07, 2006

I would expect them to start phasing out 32bit soon, shouldn't they? I don't remember how long the last switch took, but I don't think it took that long once 95 came out, did it? I guess the first 64bit-only OS is still a ways away, though.

Island Dog

on Apr 07, 2006

I wonder how Vista will run on an Intel Mac.

Corky_O

on Apr 07, 2006

Well, the articles are a bit confusing with all the naming of technologies, but here is a bite on some Intel 64-bit plans http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/17/intel_plots_4mb_l2_64bit/

A bit dated (March 2006).

Yellow Sign

on Apr 07, 2006

PCs not ready for Vista?
Well, as I know MS, it will take another year or two after release until Vista can be considred ready for PCs.

/Anoher happy Ubuntu user - XP for gaming puposes only

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