Many people are tempted by some features of Windows vista and want to run to the nearest computer retail store and buy a copy of Vista and install it on the old computer that is running windows 2000 or Windows XP, but stop if you are one of them, take it easy, there are some comparability issues you need to know before shelling out any money on windows vista, don’t get disappointed to know by the hard way that what you were excited about windows vista is not supported by your current computer. Here I will try to explain what you need to successfully upgrade to windows vista.
First of all, to run windows Vista satisfactorily on your computer you need at least 1 GB of physical memory , Microsoft recommends 512 MB for Home basic and a 1GB for premium and ultimate, but as experience tell, that is just the minimum that vista will need to run on a computer, you will need to double those numbers if you don’t want frustration about your computer being slow.
You will need a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor faster than 1 GHz to run vista, again, that’s the minimum you will, I would recommend a processor faster than 2 GHz to avoid any computer performance headaches, a processor lower than those number will stay a 100% usage all the time, and I’m speaking out of experience.
Graphic Card; the most fancy feature of windows vista is the new looking glass feel called Aero, although all graphic cards support windows vista not ALL the graphic cards support the aero feature, you need to make sure your graphic card supports it by going to its manufacture website almost all of them list the graphic cards there that support Vista aero, at least you need a graphic card that supports DirectX 9 with WDDM driver with 128 MB of memory minimum, 256 recommended.You will need a 40 GB hard drive with 15 GB available free space, windows vista indeed uses a lot hard drive space, so you will need a big hard drive if you want to have enough space for the OS and your stuff.
You will need a DVD reader on your computer to install vista.
Also not all the drivers for all the hardware on your computer might be windows vista compatible, you might have an old printer, scanner, or camera etc. that might not be compatible with windows vista, make sure all this equipment meets windows vista requirement before buying anything. Your computer might not be worth upgrading, you could be better off by buying a computer with windows vista preinstalled.
How can you check your computer is windows vista ready? Go to Microsoft to download and run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to check if your computer is windows vista ready, make sure all your hardware pass the test, Microsoft will tell you the computer is Vista ready even though the video card does not support Aero, or your processor is not fast enough, in this case, if you install vista your computer basically will run with the classic settings which are very much like windows XP, so if you have Windows XP already on your computer does not worth the hassle to upgrade to windows vista.
You can also run Belarc to check the hardware you are running on your computer.
Nelson,
That’s great information…so complete.
It sounds like most folks would be better off just buying a new computer with Windows Vista installed.
Hopefully many will see your post,before upgrading.