All would be Vista downloaders should be aware of this!

[slowday444]

http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CI...1&src=site-marq

[Eldmannen]

Yeah, Vista sucks I heard some people had problem with that it cant detect the SATA controller.

 

It requires crazy good computer to even run, strong hardware requirements.

[oli]

you got served eldmannen

[1984]

well, and with no animosity towards eldmannen, i have to agree with djlizard. i dont understand all the hoopla. i use windows xp and am quite happy. enjoy msn messenger, and have even :0 used internet explorer now and then.

 

you get what you pay for, or you dont. i choose to pay for a genuine version of windows (and my other software) and dont care if the genuine advantage validator or vistas or whatever calls home. im not doing anything wrong.

 

as well, freeware is great- i use tons of it. but it doesnt meet all my personal needs, so some things i buy. this keeps companies and the industry as a whole in business. money has to flow. someone has to buy.

 

a good product will get purchased. will i use vista? well not now. i will wait a bit (for my income to climb up again, and the technology to get to the point that i will be confident spending the bucks that i want to and get the products i want) to get vistas, just as i am waiting for the multi core processors and such.

 

i just dont see the complaining. we get freesoftware and complain. we get expensive high end software we complain. wheres the answer?

 

im greatful to use products like ccleaner, adaware, spybot, eztrust antivirus, kerio firewall, spyware blaster, dial a fix, firefox, nvu and so many others-with not a dime out of my pocket. these people deserve respect. they are helping people without payback and are quite unselfish.

 

not meaning to offend anyone, just giving my point of view.

[DjLizard]

Also, my computer is not crazy, and Vista runs like a dream (including Aero). I'm using the scary ole Beta 2.

 

AMD 2500+ on an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard

1GB of RAM (and it's not even DDR 400 - it's 266!)

120 GB IDE HDD (7200 RPM with 8 MB cache)

ATI Radeon 9800XT (256MB of VRAM)

 

It even gets faster as you use it (content indexing, SuperFetcher, automatic defragmenting, and more are responsible for this).

[PS3]

theres one other thing thats not on that list of 5 cautions. it also uses alot of RAM. you need a minimum of 1GB of it to make sure vista beta 2 runs properly. i havent intalled it yet but now i dont think i will from what i read from that list.

[JDPower]

This from PCPitstop.com, usually very reliable and unbiased in their comments:

Last week, Microsoft announced their recommended specifications for Vista PC's, and frankly I was floored. A Vista PC should have a DVD-ROM, 1 GB of memory, a 1 GHZ CPU, and a 40GB hard drive with 15GB of available space. Of the PC's that tested at PC Pitstop in April, over 70% do not meet Vista's bloated specification. Worse yet, over 80% of portables and 80% of business PC's do not meet the spec. Note: our analysis does not include Vista's video memory requirement of 256MB. So our statistics are best case.

Is your system ready for Microsoft Vista? Find out in our all new Vista Readiness Test.

 

Why in the world does Vista make such strenuous demands on the hardware? There is one simple answer - Eye Candy. Before the introduction of XP, one was hard pressed to tell if someone was running Windows ME, Windows 98, or Windows 2000. Though the internals were different, the user experience was the same. This all changed with XP. Microsoft created a whole new look and feel for XP, with new rounded corners and visual effects.

 

Microsoft hopes to continue this tradition with Vista. Vista will change the way that Windows are displayed on our screens. In particular, Vista will incorporate smooth transitional effects when we change from one window to another. Despite the wow factor, this approach is extremely memory intensive. Worse yet, is what happens when Vista runs out of memory. The computer will start thrashing.

 

Let's suppose Vista has enough memory to open five windows, and you open a sixth one. Since your memory is full, the computer will start thrashing. (Your system is thrashing if your hard drive light is illuminated for extended periods of time.) Windows will attempt to move things that it thinks it does not need out of memory in order to make room for the new window. If you have not experienced this problem, it is not pretty. Depending on the size of your windows, you could leave the room, take a shower, and it might still have not changed windows.

 

What's Microsoft's solution to this mess since so many systems might simultaneously start thrashing? Vista has a special feature that allows you to expand memory using a thumb drive - those little flash hard drives that plug into a USB port. I have a better solution. Don't upgrade to Vista.

 

Do you have two monitors connected to your computer? Are you running at 1280 or higher resolution? Or do you like to have 50 windows open at the same time? These problems just get worse for you guys.

 

Certainly, there aren't a lot of people that will upgrade to Vista just for eye candy. Not much I am afraid. Most of the really useful features like improved security and intuitive search have already been pulled. Unbelievable as it sounds, Microsoft plans to include a calendar in Vista. Now that's worth upgrading to 1GB of memory!

 

I bought Microsoft stock in 1997 when I was still at Gateway at $10. I have ridden it up and I've ridden it down. I don't like to sell my stocks, but in this case, I have to make an exception. Vista is a pig that doesn't deliver the pork.

[Glenn]

 

It requires crazy good computer to even run, strong hardware requirements.

I'm not Microsoft's biggest fan and I've done my share of complaining but ... I remember people saying the same thing about Windows 95. Every major OS revision has faced the same outrage, just different numbers.

[DjLizard]

Exactly, Glenn.

 

This is like those people who complain that Firefox is using too much available memory. Does having a lot of free memory make your computer faster? No. Does a program using more memory mean that the program is necessarily going to go faster? No, but the biggest problem with resources now is that they don't get assigned and managed appropriately. People are so thrifty that they'd much rather see their RAM not get used at all. These people have 1 or 2+ GB of RAM and never break more than 500MB used (except with Firefox, and then they just shut the process down, or switch to another browser in disgust).

 

Vista has a lot of services that help manage your resources more efficiently. To upgrade to a new OS with so many new features and not expect the system requirements to reflect such, is in similar thinking to this itnews.com.au article. Oh holy crap, my OS is actually using my RAM... sound the alarm. Also, the system requirements are going to be closer to usable requirements with Vista. With XP, 128MB was supposed to be the minimum. While this is a minimum, it certainly isn't a usable one. 256MB isn't even good enough. XP doesn't start getting good until 512MB. Vista is going to be more appropriately described.

 

My aforementioned computer runs Vista like a dream, so what is the big deal?

 

"A Vista PC should have a DVD-ROM, 1 GB of memory, a 1 GHZ CPU, and a 40GB hard drive with 15GB of available space" is not a statement that should floor you. This seems like quite a modest computer!

 

 

edit: Those that think the only reason Vista has higher system requirements is the eye candy should get a clue. Vista requires a faster computer whether or not you use Aero (the so-called eye candy). Aside from that, understand that the "eye candy" is doing something never before done in a version of Windows: accelerating screen writes. For the first time in Microsoft history, its operating system is actually using the video card to scale its graphics, paint its windows, and so forth. This incurs no more of a penalty than the requirement of a decent video card (in order to get Aero). If you don't have a video card that supports Aero, then you're missing out on quite a lot of CPU and system RAM relief. Instead of using the CPU and system RAM to paint and hold windows, the video card will finally be able to do this job. This will provide much needed resource relief. Also, for the first time ever, windows are drawn with vsync. I've been bugged for years by the screen-tearing GDI produces because the graphics subsystem isn't vsynched. If you don't have Aero, your system is not going to be as fast as it could with it.

[JDPower]

"A Vista PC should have a DVD-ROM, 1 GB of memory, a 1 GHZ CPU, and a 40GB hard drive with 15GB of available space" is not a statement that should floor you. This seems like quite a modest computer!

 

It may be quite a modest computer for desktop users but for those of us who use laptops that is pretty high end, especially when you add in the necessity for a high end video card. I would guess that would rule out about 90% of laptop users.

BTW I have a pretty new laptop (less than a year old), and I consider it to be pretty high spec by laptop standards but I couldn't run Vista (3GHz CPU, 40Gb hard drive with 70% free space but only 512Mb RAM and 64Mb graphics card)

 

For the record I'm not anti Vista and am not too interested upgrading to it, just trying to illustrate a point.

[DjLizard]

The case was the same when XP came out. Currently laptops couldn't run it worth a damn. This is pretty normal. Also, your laptop probably can run Vista, but not Aero. You could easily upgrade your RAM to 1 GB if necessary (if you really wanted to run a next-gen OS on a current-gen system). Basically, Vista is being slated for new PCs (just like all previous versions of Windows were) rather than being posed as an upgrade to current ones.

[JDPower]

You could easily upgrade your RAM to 1 GB if necessary

Hmmm, if I had half a clue of what I was doing, maybe

...if you really wanted to run a next-gen OS on a current-gen system...

 

Not really, like I said just illustrating a point.

[DjLizard]

Most laptops have a panel on the back where the SODIMMs go. One or two screws at most is all that you have to remove in order to access this panel. It takes less than 30 seconds to put in laptop RAM if a technician like me is doing it.

[JDPower]

Most laptops have a panel on the back where the SODIMMs go. One or two screws at most is all that you have to remove in order to access this panel. It takes less than 30 seconds to put in laptop RAM if a technician like me is doing it.

 

I know how simple it is to do and I know exactly where and how on my laptop. Its not having a clue about what type of ram to put in and what it can handle that is my problem.

[Monkey Proof]

you can go here to see what RAM your laptop will take and handle.

 

crucial.com

[zaphirer]

I know how simple it is to do and I know exactly where and how on my laptop. Its not having a clue about what type of ram to put in and what it can handle that is my problem.

 

 

Visit Crucial, as MP_Handler said.

 

Or, you can always bring your laptop into your local computer store, like Fry's. I'm sure most technicians there would at least help you point it out. Check out your laptop manual, too.

[JDPower]

you can go here to see what RAM your laptop will take and handle.

 

crucial.com

 

Thanks for that, very helpful. BUT... (dumb questions coming up )

 

I entered my model number on the Crucial sute it said I had one memory slot with 512Mb currently installed. I tried their system scanner, it said I had 2 slots, each with 256Mb.

 

The manual states:

 

"512Mb(256+256)" and that "PC2100 256Mb or 512Mb or 1024Mb memory modules can be installed in the expansion memory slot for a maximum of 1.5Gb with the onboard memory and the expansion memory"

 

This confused me (I've not had any experience of upgrading computers), so I took the RAM cover panel off to have a look and there is one memory stick there with a sticker on each side stating 256 Mb.

 

Dumb questions are: Is the RAM stick 512Mb with 256Mb on each side (or 256Mb just with two stickers)?

 

OR as I suspect from the manual description, is the stick 256Mb (and this is the expansion slot described) with the other 256Mb installed permanently within the laptop, or on the motherboard? (meaning I could put in a 512Mb stick and have 768Mb, or 1Gb and have 1280Mb)

 

BTW The laptop is a Toshiba Equium A60 (and apologies for the dumb questions )