Windows Vista Beta 2

CEpeep

New member
Beta 2 came out yesterday and I've had a chance to install and play with it. This build is certainly an improvement over the last one I tried. Everything seems more fluid. One of the major issues I'm noticing is the RAM requirement. The system I'm testing it on has 768MB of RAM. Vista uses more than half that (about 400MB) just sitting there. Doing nothing. Part of this has to do with the resolution I'm running at (1600x1200) and the amount of video memory (128MB) I have to drive it. The system uses less RAM when I scale it down to 1280x960. Anything less than that uses the same amount of RAM (about 300MB). I imagine RAM usage would be somewhere around that mark if I were using a video card with 256 or 512MB of video memory.

Driver support is up from the last release, though some hardware emulation driver (like Daemon Tools) don't work properly. I'm loving the new start menu. There's a bar at the bottom that works as a combination between "Run" and "Search". Typing in "paint" launches Paint. Typing in "civ" launches Civilization 4. Typing in a URL launches it in Firefox (my default browser). The strange "metasearches" that were in the start menu in the last version have been removed.

My only real recommendations for Vista include plenty (1GB minimum for normal usage) of RAM and a video card with at least 128MB of VRAM.

Feel free to field any further questions. Attached is a screenshot including my system specs.
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I don't know Athlon a lot. What's the speed of your CPU ?

I have A P4 1.7 Ghz with 768 MRam and a 128 Megs videocard.

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</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Cornellius on 05/24/06 05:43 PM.</FONT></P>
 
> Your computer is rated a 2. What does that mean?
>

Systems are assigned a number based on how powerful their hardware is. Your overall number will always be your lowest score from the chart on the left rounded down. As you can see, if I added some more RAM I'd probably be a solid 3. The overall score can be used to find programs that will run on your machine. You might go to the store and just see "2" on the bottom of a box, rather than detailed system requirements, or just in addition to them.
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Where is MS getting that 2 from anyway?

Those numbers average out to 3.26
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> Where is MS getting that 2 from anyway?

Critical path/limiting factor (lowest score) rounded down.
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Hmm...

I attempted to run the http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspxWindows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta</a> and I was informed rather quickly that my 2gigs of free disk space would not be enough for Vista. No surprises there. However, it then tells me:

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>


15GB free space required (Your computer currently has 2.09 GB)
You will either need to:
a) upgrade your hard drive to increase its capacity, or
b) create additional free space on your existing drive by removing unwanted files.
If you decide to upgrade your hard drive, we recommend 40GB capacity at minimum for premium editions of Windows Vista. Contact your PC retailer to see if an upgrade is available.


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<img src=smilies/eek13.gif> 15gb minimum? Yeesh.
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> 15gb minimum? Yeesh.
>

Vista install is about 8-10GB depending on exactly what you install. If you want to have room for virtual memory and stuff, set aside another 2GB at max. Add on the space required for any sort of applications and you have about 15GB. The install itself doesn't take 15GB. Microsoft just wants to make sure you have plenty of space on your computer to use for other things, too.
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> Microsoft just
> wants to make sure you have plenty of space on your computer
> to use for other things, too.

Well that makes sense. 8-10gb is still a lot for an OS, though.
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DOS takes up less. I love DOS<img src=smilies/liefde.gif>
<P ID="signature">The pipes clangor all the time!</P>
 
I ran the Vista Upgrade Advisor to check driver capability and it seems the only thing that is a problem is my SB Audigy2. peep how's my system going to handle Vista?

2x P4 XEON 1.5ghz
1GB PC800 ECC RDRAM
127GB free HDD space
FX5700LE 256MB nVidia graphics card
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coolieranx: I think accepting Christ should at least be worth a PlayStation 3</center></P>
 
> 2x P4 XEON 1.5ghz
> 1GB PC800 ECC RDRAM
> 127GB free HDD space
> FX5700LE 256MB nVidia graphics card

Should handle it just fine. You're probably going to want more RAM in the future, and with RDRAM that can be a problem. You shouldn't have any problems from a video card standpoint. The card you have will run Aero just fine. The only reason your soundcard threw up a red flag is because there's no vista-specific drivers for it. You'll probably have to use XP or 2003 drivers for it until Creative puts out some official ones.
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> DOS takes up less. I love DOS
>
fully emerged Gentoo takes up about twice... but that includes stuff that's beyond "OS". dev tools, games, a choice of windowing environments, full productivity software...

just the OS + dev tools (bootstrapped and emerge world, no windowing environment chosen) is only about 4 gig. that's taking all partitions into consideration.

but then, MS have always made hoggish OS's. DOS ain't theirs, they stole it.
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> That thing requires .NET. Never.
>
Damn, I guess I made a wise decision not liking .NET if you dislike it Sam.
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Here's a question. Might be stupid, but here goes...

Will most XP/2000 apps work on Vista out of the box? Or are there software compatibility issues? My main reason for hanging onto XP has been my emulators, and I'm wondering if my current ones will just work, or do they need to be re-written?
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> Will most XP/2000 apps work on Vista out of the box? Or are
> there software compatibility issues? My main reason for
> hanging onto XP has been my emulators, and I'm wondering if
> my current ones will just work, or do they need to be
> re-written?

Unless your software has some sort of driver of its own (like Daemon Tools) or relies on hardcoded system paths that no longer exist, it should work just fine. Vista has a "Compatability Mode" selector like XP that will let you run things that are somehow incompatible with the way Vista works but worked fine on older OSes.
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According to wiki:

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

A number of criticisms have been placed upon Windows Vista, including the inclusion of a number of technologies aimed at restricting the copying of digital media

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What EXACTLY does this mean? Will it disable or effect my MP3/OGG/MPG/AVI/WMV consumption?


Oh and this worries me:
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

Windows Aero and Flip 3D require Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) to be passed.

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Even with my legitimate copies of Windows I refuse to partisipate in anything related to this. So how am I going to "stick it to the man" and still be able to see these features.

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coolieranx: I think accepting Christ should at least be worth a PlayStation 3</center></P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by JCE3000GT on 05/29/06 07:08 PM.</FONT></P>
 
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