It was a known fact last October that anyone getting a computer with Vista would need 2 GB of RAM for a good experience. Of course, no one ever came out and said, “Your customers will absolutely need 2 gigs to run Vista,” but our tech guys figured it out pretty quick in beta testing.
As far as I know, none of the big computer dealer’s have made a strong recommendation of 2 GB yet. It’s hard for the sales people (at least the ones who know what they’re doing) to explain to a customer why they need to shell out 100-150 bucks for an internal component when the first time a customer hears about the issue is from a freaking salesperson.
Idiots.
Yeah, MS recommends 512 meg for Vista home basic, and 1 gig of RAM for home premium and the business edition.
They say you can get XP between now and the anniversary date of Vista’s launch in January. (Any idea how this actually works out in practice, if you go into Best Buy or Circuit City, and tell them you want to buy that computer over there, only with XP rather than Vista?) I think I need to buy my next computer between now and then. XP is the only MS OS that’s actually worked the way it ought to.
I’ve been using Vista since my XP machine shat the bed about two months ago. I’m running Home Premium and I only have a gig of RAM and it seems to run fine. I wonder if maybe the processor has more to do with it than is being let on. I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor (2gHz). Or it could be a laptop vs. desktop issue. My only gripe has been with the availability & performance of 3rd party software on Vista.
I bought a new machine with Vista preinstalled and it runs just fine with 1 gigabyte of memory.
I upgraded it to 2 gigabytes in the next few days.
Of course it runs better with 2 gigabytes, but it isn’t more than 10% faster.
I think the processor is more likely the problem.
I am running my PC with an Intel DuoCore 2.16 GhZ processor and it works fine.
It starts up really fast and shuts down really fast too.
The only problem I have is that when I use the shutdown button in the start menu, it doesn’t shut down, but suspends.
For some reason I cannot get it to work, but I am able to shut it down through another shutdown-menu.
An Intel 1.73gHz processor? That seems really slow to me for a very modern computer. Unless laptop processors are way different (faster) than desktop processors…
I think Microsoft should just be honest an tell the truth : you will need to buy a brand new computer to run Windows Vista with all the bells and whistles.
You will need at least a dual-core processor and 2 gigabytes of memory.
If I were you I would contact the company that sold you the laptop and ask for your money back or a Windows XP license.
It is ridiculous that they sold this configuration to you as a Windows Vista platform and they should have known better.
So beside the obvious motivation for a new OS (profits for Microsoft), what does VISTA offer? I thought it would a be a super-secure, hackproof system-from what i read, you still need anti-virus software. So, unless you really need the video enhancement-capabilities of VISTA-why buy it? Are people waiting in line to purchase it?
As far as I can tell there really isn’t that much added value, except it looks really pretty. 
There have already been articles about the fact that Vista is hardly more secure than XP.
And no, people are definitely not lining up for it.
You can now choose for XP at a lot of vendors who first only pushed Vista.
I think Vista will only begin to shine with DirectX 10 games, like Crysis.
Of course you will need to buy a new DX10 compatible videocard at that time for another 600 USD to be able to run it at the best settings.
Re: my post earlier… I think that the download dialogue appearing as I went to the Vista Upgrade Advisor page thing was only a coincidence. We have some software on the corporate network that occasionally downloads something and gives that sort of message. The corporate software definitely should be better-explained, though.
And it should not be necessary to search in order to find something as basic as the requirements for Vista on the MS website!
Vista isn’t going anywhere near my hardware anytime soon. I’ve read up quite a bit on it, and the more I read, the more I dislike it. XP has done me fine since it came out. Vista offers me no compelling reasons to switch and many compelling reasons to report its spread to the CDC for containment.
Prettier? I chortle at you. (My XP desktop, pre-crash, which is currently being reassembled)
Of course, the big question is why your computer needs more RAM to show a couple of windows than a game which displays hundreds of thousands of polygons every moment with proper lighting, collision detection, etc.
According to MS, the problems with Vista are due to trying to rebuild too much stuff from scratch. The bloat seems to prove, however, that pretty much none of it is new. It’s all just another layer on top of XP.
My new laptop came with Vista. While I was initially frustrated in trying to navigate and turn of the nag pop-ups (and don’t even talk to me about trying to get my wireless router configured with its mac addy), I had to admit that it’s actually quite shiny and pretty. I ended up going to a dual boot with XP (with an extra partition for a later possible install of Ubuntu) so I could play WoW and Spellforce 2 and take advantage of the really spiffy hardware my new lappy came with. Vista is disappointing in the gaming area, to say the least. I kept it there though, as I suspect that someday Vista will not suck as much.
Once I got all the babysitting stuff turned off, it is actually a neat-o os to play with. I have experienced no trouble with running slow or crashing.
I really would but I need my laptop since my old one spontaneously combusted. Right now is crunch time for me at work and I need a functional computer to work on. My friend is trying to get me a deal on XP so I won’t tear out my hair from Vista. I guess I’m just one of the unlucky Vista users.
I wrote my master’s thesis on a Kaypro IV '83 and that was good enough for me, by gum. Ah, the green glow of Wordstar…
I remember reading somewhere that all MS’s demo machines for Vista have 4 GB.
I have a 3+ year old emachines laptop with a 1.8Ghz AMD64 and 1.25GB RAM that is used heavily everyday, I installed Vista Business on it and have not had a single issue. It does internet, video, Aero, and even Battlefield 2 just fine, I’m always kind of surprised to hear so many Vista complaints when I’ve had a pretty good experience on my old beaten-up laptop. I did get the Vista upgrade free from some Microsoft deal, which makes things easier.
Ehm, did mine have a memory? It must have one, since you had to stick the DOS disk in when you woke it up and then you could stick other disks in, but damn me if I remember how much it was 
My laptop is 1yo so of course I keep looking at other ones. It’s still ahead of most of the stuff you find in regular stores (and cost about half as much as a comparable “branded” one would have at the time, more or less what they cost now), but what can I say, I like looking at shiny things.
Every time I get to the part where a webpage says: “OS: Vista, or Vista, or you can also choose Vista” I’m like “naaaah” - I do have XP so I could wipe-and-install, but why bother? At least before, uh, next year…
Is there a nice guide to turning off all the babysitting stuff somewhere? Not that I don’t think I could figure out how, it’s just that I don’t know what babysitting stuff is there to begin with, to know to turn it off.
Mind you, I don’t have Vista yet. I bought it. It was even delivered. But someone opened the box on my porch and stole it. I filed a police report, and the company I bought it from filed a claim with FedEx and so I’m hoping to get a replacement any time now :dubious:
But anyway, when I finally do get it, I am going to want to turn a ton of stuff off, I’m sure, and know what that stuff is in one handy list would be…uh…handy.
There are squillions of guides on how to make XP look like Vista, but not so many the other way around, still, this one covers some of the visual stuff, and this one tells you how to turn off some of the annoying prompts (apparently at the expense of security, if such a thing exists).
Cool, thanks! I bookmarked that second one (not so concerned with the visual stuff)