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December 7, 2006
Basics
Vista Is Ready. Are You?
By LARRY MAGID
WINDOWS VISTA, the latest iteration of Microsoft’s operating system, is finally here. It was officially released to corporate users last week and will be available to consumers on Jan. 30. But now that Vista is ready, will your computer be? And what will be involved in an upgrade?
Microsoft says Vista offers increased security, along with an improved search function, an excellent calendar program, improved networking and a sidebar with quick access to mini-programs called gadgets. With the right display adapter, some editions of Vista will also offer a new interface called Aero that lets you preview what is inside a running program by placing your cursor over its thumbnail in the task bar.
It will be possible for many PC users to spend $99 to $259 to purchase a Vista DVD to upgrade their existing Windows XP machines. But before you do that, you need to take a good look at your PC as well as your peripherals and software. If your system isn’t quite compatible, it might be possible to make it ready for Vista with some additional memory or perhaps a new video card.
Even if your PC is Vista-ready, that doesn’t mean you should buy the upgrade kit. For most users, especially those whose hardware isn’t quite up to speed, it might make sense to wait until it’s time for a new PC.
The easiest way to get Vista is to buy a new PC after Jan. 30. If you want a new PC sooner, make sure the hardware is Vista-ready and see if the vendor is offering a coupon for a free or low-cost upgrade when Vista comes out. It is essential to compare the cost of buying a new system against purchasing Vista and upgrading your current PC. By the time you add up the cost of Vista plus any required hardware, it might be make more sense to get a new machine.
One variable for those thinking of upgrading is Vista’s system requirements, which vary by edition. Microsoft will offer a $99 Home Basic Edition that provides limited functionality but runs on more basic equipment. Unlike the higher-end versions, Home Basic won’t support the new Aero interface.
The minimum configuration to run the Home Basic Edition of Vista is a PC with 512 megabytes of memory, at least an 800-megahertz processor and a graphics card that is DirectX9-compatible; this includes most graphics adapters sold in the last few years. In other words, a vast majority of PCs that have been purchased in recent years are able to run this stripped-down version of Vista — but just because they’re able doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth the cost, effort and potential compatibility problems with existing software and peripherals.
Most consumers will find the $159 Home Premium edition more suitable. It includes the Aero interface along with Windows Media Center (to manage audio and video resources) and other features. The minimum hardware for the Premium edition is a gigabyte of memory and a one-gigahertz processor. You’ll also need DirectX 9 graphics with a Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver and at least 128 megabytes of graphics memory and pixel shader 2.0. Pixel shader refers to the ability of your graphics processor to render the surface properties of an image including lighting, shadows and other visual qualities.
Your machine must also have at least a 40-gigabyte hard drive with 15 gigabytes of free space as well as a DVD-ROM drive and audio output. While you can never have too much memory, Microsoft’s Vista group product manager, Greg Sullivan, said that one gigabyte was plenty. I’ve been running Vista on a 1.5-gigabyte machine and haven’t had any memory-related problems.
If your machine has Windows XP, an easy way to find out if it’s Vista-ready is to download the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft’s Vista Web site (www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready). The program, which is available now, will scan your PC to determine which edition of Vista, if any, can run on your machine.
Be sure to plug in all your external peripherals, like printers, scanners and external hard drives, as they, too, need to be evaluated by the upgrade tool. When the upgrade adviser scan is finished it will tell which edition it recommends. You don’t necessarily have to buy the recommended edition. To the left of the screen is a list of other editions. Click on the ones you’re considering and scroll down to see what changes you might have to make to run that edition.
Don’t panic if the upgrade adviser finds that some of your device drivers aren’t Vista-compatible. Chances are there are new drivers available to fix the problem. Microsoft has included many drivers within the operating system so, if all goes well, it will take care of making sure that your display adapter, sound card, printer, Ethernet card and other devices have the software they need to operate correctly.
But the list of included drivers is not exhaustive. Very old, very new and relatively obscure hardware might not be included, so to be safe, before you install Vista, visit the Web site for each of your hardware vendors to download the latest Vista drivers. The upgrade adviser looks for minimal, not optimal requirements.
For the Aero interface, the video card or Graphics Processing Unit (G.P.U.) is the most important component. The chips on that card (or on your PC’s system board) do the heavy lifting when it comes to displaying images on your monitor. Vista’s Aero interface, according to Rob Csongor, vice president of Nvidia, a leading maker of chips for computer graphics, is especially taxing on video processors because of the way it renders windows.
The use of Vista’s Flip 3-D window changer, for example, requires the video card to render a 3-D image of all of your open windows every time you press Alt Tab. The Windows desktop, according to a Microsoft Web site, “will be dynamically composed many times a second from the contents of each window.”
Even if your graphics card is Aero-compatible, you may still want to upgrade for faster performance. In my tests, a three-year-old Aero-compatible card from ATI (now part of Advanced Micro Devices) was noticeably slower than newer, moderately priced (about $130) cards from both ATI and Nvidia. I noticed it and so did the Windows Experience performance scanning program that comes with Vista.
If you have a desktop PC with a graphics card that’s not up to the task, you can replace the card with one that is Vista Aero-ready, and if your PC system board has an embedded graphics system, it may still be possible to add an external card. If you have a notebook PC whose graphics processor isn’t Vista-ready, you’re pretty much out of luck because, other than adding additional memory, it’s generally not possible to upgrade internal components of a laptop.
Another way to improve performance is to use a U.S.B. thumb drive or SD card to take advantage of Vista’s ReadyBoost feature. Vista uses that memory to store some of your program code so that programs load much faster than if it had to load from the hard drive.
Whether or not your machine is compatible, upgrading an operating system can be challenging despite Microsoft’s efforts to make it as smooth as possible. You should definitely back up your data files before starting. You have the choice of doing an “in place” upgrade, which retains your applications and data files, or a “full install,” which requires you to reinstall your programs.
A full install by default will not delete your data, though it may make the data more difficult to find. It often results in a faster and more reliable system because it cleans up the Windows registry and deletes any spyware and possibly problematic software on your machine.
And if you’re reluctant to upgrade, don’t fret. If Windows XP works for you now, it will continue to work long after Jan. 30. Besides, Vista isn’t going away anytime soon. Whether you want to or not, you’ll probably be using it on your next PC.
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