With all the hoohah going on about Vista RC1, I thought that this gravity-inducing post was rather good.

	Windows XP (2001)	Windows Vista (2007)
CPU	233 MHz	800 MHz (1 GHz recommended)
RAM	64 MB (128 MB recommended)	512 MB (1 GB recommended)
Video	Super VGA (800 x 600) display	DirectX9 video card (128 MB video RAM recommended)
HDD	1.5 GB	15 GB

Vista requires 10x the drive space, 8x the memory, and 4x the CPU power. It also substantially raises the bar for video; most integrated video solutions are no longer acceptable. The increase in minimum spec is not unreasonable, considering it’s been 6 long years since the last release of a mainstream desktop operating from Microsoft.

Since I havn’t had the chance to download RC1 due to a non-existant broadband connection, I’ll jusrt go by Beta 2 that I’m using.

Running only Media Player, nothing else, Vista uses nearly 650MB of RAM. Thats still 200Mb more that XP with all the bells and whistles running in the background (i.e.Nortons, Getright, etc). I can’t even, and this is ridiculous, play a DVD becuase most of my RAM is taken up.

I actually like Vista. Its great. Totally rebuilt. Now i thought, and correct me if I’m mistaken, that rebuilding the OS was supposed to strip out all the ancient, slow code and replace it with somthing rather more efficient. Sure, there is alot of extras in Vista that makes it impossible to to a straight comparison.

The simple fact is that the more demands placed on a pc the narrower the market becomes ( in the sense that it alienates pople who are unwilling or cannot replace or upgrade a pc to the new standards). I have a 1996 era pc running at home that requires a rebuild. What do a I do? Wait for Vista? Or go ahead and reinstall Windows and only to have it crash quickely and loudly? Can’t Microsoft release somthing lightweight to run on pre-XP pc’s? We don’t need all the bells and whistles somtimes.  All I need is a computer to share the harddrive space to the rest of the network.

Maybe Google can take up the slack?

So, I've got Vista up an running. Now What?

Well. Its running fine. Had to install updates duing the installation process. Then it had to install two updates via Windows Update, one of which got my sound working. 

Second, I tried to install Norton's Internet Security 2004 due to Security Center's whineing about there being no antivirus software installed. It wouldn't even start the Norton's installer due to "Compatibility Issues". Damned thing. I'll have to use Trend Micro as I've still got a license to use with them. Or I'l just run Norton's from my XP install periodicaly to sweep the HD for viruses. I'll look into that. 

The Start menu is good, takes XP personalisation one step further.  Much better organisation and easier on the eyes.

This ties in the the whole aspect of the User Interface.

The SideBar is good, it's invisible except for the gadgets on it. If you look the properties theres an option for which monitor you want the sidebar on. This is good for multi-monitor setups that are touted to increase productivity. It is generally indicative of the foward thinking behind the OS as a whole. Its a small feature, but it means alot. The OS Meter gadget is THE coolest thing since sliced bread. OSX Watch Out!!I'll be getting more gadgets from the internet soon.

Now there are numerous display options that will take time to investigate properly. Including the Areo Interface that I've not managed to trick on yet. 

The  whole OS has a different feel about it, most down to the total redesign of the UI. But alot also goes to the logic of things. The Network Centre is one instance of this. its all there at a glance. Most things that users would want to see are right there. i would like to have an expansion opton to see further, more complicated settings on the same page. The View Status tab on each network is again nicely organised into Ipv4 and IPv6 and is rather logical. But should only one of these be visible depending on which protocol is beng used? Now,I'll go into this a little further in a later post, but having seamlessness denies those users who wish to delve futher into the settings/status the right to do so. Rather, as Adam Greenfield argues in his book Everyware, seamfullness should be used: its the state in which users are made aware of the seams, however subtly, and have the option to further expose those seams, in this case, deeper and deeper levels of settings. More on Everyware later.

Now much of Windows has been rebuilt fromthe ground up. This includes videp, sound, the networking stack and so on.  I'm particularly interested in the networking stack as its suppose to offer 40% more usage of bandwidth than the old networking stack used in XP and before. So i'll be looking at that. 

I'm extremely positive about  Windows Vista and I'll continue to experiance all that it offers. 

I'll try post some screenshots soon. 

I'm installing Vista for about the fourth time. The other three times, the installation came to a screeching halt. Somthing about prepareing setup for reboot. So it stopped at 27% when it expands the files. So I had a think about it. My hunch is that Norton GoBack, which seems to modify the boot record directly, is the problem. So I uninstalled that (sorry Nortons).

Currently setup is at 58% and copying files to my spare harddrive (I'm not in the mood to re-install everything if an upgrade goes south).

Things look good. Just hope I don't have to Fedex somthing to be thrown at the guy who wrote in installer.

Stay tuned….

Update: I was right. Nortons was the problem. Now. Where do I submit bugs so that someone else not blest with my technical intelect dosen't have to deal with this? 🙂