Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Microsoft Unveils 'Vista Premium' Requirements 287

Posted by Zonk from the tough-crowd dept.
Graeme writes "Microsoft has finished what some are calling the true minimum requirements for Windows Vista: the finalized requirements for the 'Vista Premium' certification program. The program is used to influence OEM designs, and it gives an idea of what Microsoft thinks Vista really needs to run well, and what they think is in the horizon. The Ars report hits the highlights, and there are some surprises in there, such as a delayed requirement for HDCP. Ars suspects that the slow ramp-up is due to the pact to not use the Image Constraint Token."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Microsoft Unveils 'Vista Premium' Requirements More

Microsoft Unveils 'Vista Premium' Requirements

Comments Filter:

  • FTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kagura ( 843695 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @01:53PM (#15550092)
    In no particular order, these are the notable additional requirements for Premium certification:

    Effective now:

    * HD Audio support that passes a "high-fidelity audio experience" test (exception: Business class systems have until June 1, 2007).
    * Support for Direct3d 9 and DXGI feature sets (Direct3d 10 mandated by June 1, 2008).
    * At least one digital output (e.g., DVI-D) for all add-in video adapters (not integrated video: that doesn't change until June 1, 2008).
    * 100Mb Ethernet and/or and WiFi (802.11g must be supported; 802.11a can be supported only in addition to 802.11g).
    * USB 2.0 ports throughout
    * System resumes from ACPI S3 state ("suspend-to-ram") in 2 seconds (does not include user mode initialization, i.e., total "wake" time will be longer than 2 seconds)

    • Re:FTFA - USB??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:13PM (#15550234)
      USB 2.0 ports throughout

      Don't they mean USB 2.0 High-Speed ports? The USB 2.0 "full speed" scam should have never been allowed to exist in the first place.

      • Doesn't full speed mean USB 1.1?

      • Re:FTFA - USB??? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by eggoeater ( 704775 )
        From Wikipedia:

        USB 2.0: Revised in December 2002. Added three speed distinctions to this standard, allowing all devices to be USB 2.0 compliant even if they were previously considered only 1.1 or 1.0 compliant. This makes the backwards compatibility explicit, but it becomes more difficult to determine a device's throughput without seeing the symbol. As an example, a computer's port could be incapable of USB 2.0's hi-speed fast transfer rates, but still claim USB 2.0 compliance (since it supports some of

        • Re:FTFA - USB??? Wikepedia (Score:4, Informative)

          by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @06:10PM (#15552147)
          From Wikipedia:

          The Wikepedia article should be updated to point out clearly that the whole part of USB 2.0 full speed is a marketing scam. When USB 2.0 came out initially, theoretical maximum transfer rates jumped from 12Mbs to 480Mbs. The problem was that there were still a huge backlog of unsold systems with the old USB 1.1 ports. Of course, nobody wanted the older, slower standard, and everyone knew to insist on USB 2.0 in their new systems. The industry somehow managed to get the "standard" changed so that what was USB 1.1 could now be labeled as USB 2.0 Full Speed. The new standard became USB 2.0 High Speed. Of course, most computers were labeled simply as USB 2.0 regardless of which they had, which was a huge scam on the buyers. Why there aren't people in jail over this still infuriates me.

  • Actual vista premium requirements (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16, 2006 @01:55PM (#15550103)
    These are the requirements for our company to adopt Vista Premium.
    • Our CTO stops caring about security.
    • Our Microsoft sales rep takes our CFO out to a very nice lunch/dinner/trip

    That's how we ended up with SQL Server; and no doubt that's how we'll end up with Vista, regardless of any technical merits or issues.

    • Re:Actual vista premium requirements (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheBogie ( 941620 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @01:59PM (#15550119) Journal
      This a standard sales procedure for any big company. CTO goes out for drinks with sales rep and wakes up the next morning in a ditch with his pants around his ankles and a copy of the signed contract.
    • Yeah, these are the requirements for my company to use Vista. ...

      Oh, wait, I work at Microsoft.

    • Re:Actual vista premium requirements (Score:5, Insightful)

      by canuck57 ( 662392 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @03:29PM (#15550797)

      Our Microsoft sales rep takes our CFO out to a very nice lunch/dinner/trip

      It might also depend on how much stock he has in your company. Say you have to upgrade some 5000 portables at 3 grand a pop. Got $15 million plus, licensing extra for PCs?

      The best part of it is Linux gets it's best growth when this happens. People take their old PCs and load Linux on it to find it is stable and runs well. The only thing that will turn them off is that the toys and games they are used to are not there. Astute business people will ask why does an order entry clerk need DVI or high definition audio and the fancy options? Maybe some will ask, how does Vista justify the cost? Many will realize Linux is going to look good in business giving more life to older systems. Others will stay on XP. Each subsequent version of Windows (server or workstation) is taking longer, and longer to dominate showing the market is getting wiser.

    • It's horrifying (Score:3, Insightful)

      by uptoeleven ( 845032 )
      Users who want the "premium experience" (read: Aero interface) will need 1GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and plenty of RAM for that DirectX 9.0-Capable graphics card.

      What on earth is it doing using up a Gig of Ram, a 1GHz processor, goodness knows how much video RAM? A 3D game - for sure needs that kind of processing power, but an operating system for goodness sake? Whatever happened to writing efficient, non-bloated, elegant code? What's wrong with writing something that doesn't use more and more and more memory? Wh
  • *Windows Vista requirements*

    Arms ..... 1
    Legs ..... 1

  • Hidden Requirement... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Arketype ( 958431 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:01PM (#15550135)
    Insanity.

  • You can see where they're going (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:01PM (#15550140)
    Is it me, or does this have "DRM'ed Media PC" written all over? Hickup free HD playback, PVP, DVI-D... Yes, by 2007, but, snide comments about the real release date of Vista aside, it pretty much means "Do it now, so you save yourself from refitting it later".

    I certainly forsee computer sales in the first quarter of 2007, when the vendors try to get rid of their soon-to-be not-compatible hardware.

    It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.
    • I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.

      Do you really find that curious? Big brother worries aside, how many computers these days don't make use of networking? When all is said and done, there's a lot of other things that I find more curious about what Microsoft absolutely requires in their operating system.
      • True. Why does it HAVE to have DVI-D? Why Hi-Fi Audio?

        I mean, I can see that yes, MS can set the standard for what they want to see for a "true" Vista PC. Personally, I'd up the requirements for CPU and Ram to see it flow instead of crawl. So why do they require good video and audio output?

        Well, like I said. Media PCs is what Vista seems to be about.
        • Audio is for media, but video is for Aero, that thing (and the various shinies embedded in Vista) seem to heavily toll the user's computer to the point that it needs accelerated graphics to actually run well.

        • Re:You can see where they're going (Score:5, Insightful)

          by honkycat ( 249849 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:56PM (#15550551) Homepage Journal
          I think that's because they want to combat the idea that Apple OS is the place to go if you want pretty pictures and nice sound. Apple has control over their own hardware, so they can control that whole experience. Microsoft wants to be sure they don't become known for the OS being used on those crappy machines with poor graphics and sound. By "encouraging" hardware vendors to provide this support, they ensure this won't be a problem.
          • So now Apple will be seen as the pretty OS that runs on less? A Mac with half the premium requirements can run OS X rather well, and is still very shiny, albeit it does run into the OS X RAM issue.

            I wonder if hardware costs of running Vista will exceed the Mac tax...
        • I mean, I can see that yes, MS can set the standard for what they want to see for a "true" Vista PC. Personally, I'd up the requirements for CPU and Ram to see it flow instead of crawl. So why do they require good video and audio output?

          The reason for this is simple once you look at the big picture.

          The low "standard" requirements show that the OS will run on older computers, including Coppermine PIIIs and Socket A Athlons. This encourages people with computers that are a few years old to upgrade.

          The la

    • The Operating System doesn't require it at all... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Microsoft (the corporation) requires it of OEM's to get the Vista Premium sticker.

    • Re:You can see where they're going (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.
      ... because sending information about your computer usage (read: time spent watching Pr0n) to your printer and demanding you mail it to Microsoft goes over really well... /sarcasm
    • It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.

      Just because it requires you to have the hardware doesn't inclusively mean you can't firewall connections to *.microsoft.com:* ;)

    • Re:You can see where they're going (Score:5, Informative)

      by Keith Russell ( 4440 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:35PM (#15550405) Journal
      It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.

      The Vista Premium cert ensures that nobody will get complaints like: "Whaddya mean, my brand new PC can't run $ESOTERIC_VISTA_FEATURE_XYZ?!" People may be misled by the submitter's choice of link text. **cough**zonkdoyourjob**cough**

      The Vista Premium OEM certification requirements are not the "true minimum requirements for Windows Vista".

      The baseline requirements [microsoft.com] are an 800MHz CPU, 512MB memory, and a DirectX 9-capable video processor. (I think the DX9 requirement is more for driver compliance than hardware features, since GPUs that can't handle Aero Glass will fall back on Aero Basic, and the old Windows 2000 style is still available.) A network connection is not required, and it would be safe to presume that activation by phone will still be available. (And, given the Windows Genuine Advantage mess, that might actually be preferrable to WGA phoning it in for you.)

    • Yeah, Like I should be required to have all this trusted computing junk on my computer if all I want to do is write an email. You can run windows XP on a Pentium 1 with 128 Megs of ram, and a half meg video card if you want to. You probably shouldn't but you still can. I could see a lot of people getting really mad when they go out to buy the new version of windows only to find out that it won't run on their very recently bought computer. I just bought a computer, and it probably won't be supported by V
    • I think Dialup users will be completely screwed when trying to use Vista. Imagine the computer trying to dial every time you try to play a media file?

      "June 1, 2007, or later:

      * A Green Driver Quality Rating for all drivers.
      * "Protected Video Path" (PVP) [wikipedia.org] support, including HDCP.
      "

      The PVP is going to be as destructive as the HDTV initiative - it will render millions of computer monitors obsolete when there is nothing improved in the newer models. It's a
    • It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.

      Well, Vista Beta 2 works perfectly well with it. Good job really, as I've been utterly unable to get my damn wireless connection working...

      Besides, the OS does not require a network connection. Microsoft require it of their "Vista Premium" OEM partners, as (to them) networking is at the core of a modern PC's

    • It's also noteworthy that Vista requires OEMs to have some kind of networking ability. While this is a given by today's standards, I find it very curious that an operating system REQUIRES me to have it.

      That caught my eye too. Not just that it requires networking, but it has to be semi-fast networking. But then I thought it through: this isn't a requirement for Vista as such, this is a requirement for "full-featured" Vista. Presumably Vista supports streaming media over your LAN, so you can watch a movie o

  • Why, oh why ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gerddie ( 173963 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:01PM (#15550142)
    Protected Video Path" (PVP) support, including HDCP.
    ... why do they never listen [craphound.com].

  • They missed (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mkw87 ( 860289 )
    the requirement of need a freaking separate hard drive just the whopping size of the install.

  • Haven't we been here before? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr.Fork ( 633378 ) <edward@j@reddy.gmail@com> on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:10PM (#15550193) Journal
    Remember when everyone at work was running NT4 and we went to Windows 2000? Or when home PC's went from Win95/98/ME to XP? Remember all the hype and hysteria about the requirements back then?

    We've been here before and I remember a couple of distinctive impacts of upgrading:

    1. My desktop was a lot more stable.
    2. The computer OS and games actually ran a little faster.
    3. Need I remind everyone who's feeding us this info on Vista? The MEDIA. Nuff said.

    We've all been there, (many times now MS-DOS,win3.1/NT4-Win95/2000/XP), done that. Bring on VISTA baby!
    • ..........jhg d;kljah j

    • Re:Haven't we been here before? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We've all been there, (many times now MS-DOS,win3.1/NT4-Win95/2000/XP), done that. Bring on VISTA baby!

      Honestly, no, I don't remember. I went from Apple ]['s and CP/m to Ultrix and CTSS (on a Cray). Then to SunOS and some NeXT computers when I went back to college. That was followed into a very brief experience with a company running a mixed Win95/Win98/WinNT/Win-ME environment that was the most absurd virus hell I've ever seen and back to a SunOS/Solaris/Apple shop which migrated to a Linux/Apple shop.

    • Re:Not me. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:45PM (#15550462)
      Or when home PC's went from Win95/98/ME to XP? Remember all the hype and hysteria about the requirements back then?

      Um.... I went from Windows 98 to Win2000. Stability of NT with Game compatibility of win98. (Just without all the bluescreens)

      Everyone who knew anything about computers should have known to put Windows 2000 pro on their computer when it came out and not WinME or Win98.

      WinXP got domniance because it was just put on new computers that came out and you couldn't get Win2000 anymore.

      However XP had some major glaring flaws (mydoom anyone?) and Win2000 worked just fine for anything I needed included games. Of course these days I use XP because it came with the system and there wasn't any point downgrading because since it was from a vendor all the drivers came with the box and were Winxp certified. (some of the newer hardware gives me grief in finding drivers for my old boxes)

      So... I might get vista some day if it comes with a computer, but I seriously doubt it will be any better than Winxp or 2k as far as mind blowing features. It will of course get eventually better because MS will drop support for 2k and XP, but I don't see any rush to upgrade until SP1 or 2.

      • However XP had some major glaring flaws (mydoom anyone?) and Win2000 worked just fine for anything I needed included games.

        Nowadays, quite a lot of stuff actually requires Windows XP though (often from microsoft, and that includes games, but not always). It's always slightly frustrating to see that you can't install a game just because you were artificially blocked out (and don't tell me it's not artificial)

        • Blocked?

          Who has been blocked? The games may say "requires XP," but I have yet to see one actually block installation on 2000.

          Two examples:

          Battlefield 2. Says on the box: requires Windows XP. Does it work on Windows 2000? Hell yes, just reminds you that the game is only supported on XP before installation.

          Fable: The Lost Chapters. Says on the box: requires Windows XP. Says on the box: requires Windows XP. Does it work on Windows 2000? Hell yes, doen't even bug you about it.

          What game are you using tha
    • I was already confused with all those VISTA editions and now you're talking about bringing on VISTA baby ?

      Ok, that was a bad joke.

    • The OS is five years old (Score:4, Interesting)

      by darthservo ( 942083 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @03:33PM (#15550827)
      Another point about XP that a coworker and I were discussing this earlier today: We found ourselves surprised by the fact that XP is currently five years old, and will be nearing six when Vista is released.

      For the past five years, most of the MS crowd here have been using XP (except for those who have their feet firmly rooted in the 2k GUI). That's really amazing when pausing to think about it. Were we still using 3.1 when 98 was released? No.

      In the entire time I've used XP on my personal computers, I've found it to be a stable and reliable OS, especially for that long of a timeframe. I don't think it will be too different with Vista.

    • Remember when home PC's went from Win95/98 to ME? Remember all the hype and hysteria about the requirements back then?

      1. My desktop was a lot less stable.
      2. The computer OS and games actually ran a lot slower.
      3. Need I remind everyone who's feeding us this info on Vista? The CRASHES. Nuff said.

  • Business needs this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Frosty Piss ( 770223 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:10PM (#15550194)
    I can't believe that Microsoft expects business and government to be moving in the direction of Vista anytime soon. All the "bells and whistles" of Vista seem very much targeted at consumers, I just don't see any of it being something that justifies even thinking about upgrading any business workstation installations.
    • Well, yeah. But Vista *does* introduce a lot more Group Policy settings in an Active Directory environment. Network administrators can control *a lot* more stuff via Group Policy, which is nice.

      But it isn't much of a reason to upgrade. Hell, I doubt that all that many businesses plan to upgrade any time in the near future. Ever since XP came out, hardware has been "fast enough" for ALL of the typical business software that most companies run. Hell, even some of the late "pre-XP" Windows 2000 machines are
    • Why would a business need the premium edition? Can you even get a computer slower than 800mhz from dell? The ram is the only iffy component, and by the time vista comes out 512mb will be standard.

  • Aero feature (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vldragon ( 981127 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:13PM (#15550232)
    It seems many of these specs are for the areo feature. Am I the only one that thinks the whole aero craze is over the top. Is it really that important to be able to see through some of your windows and have them displayed in "3d"? Most likely when I load Vista I look at that feature, say ohh thats neet, then turn them all off mostly because its just a waste of reasorces. Any one else feel the same way?

    • Re:Aero feature (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Bill Dog ( 726542 )
      No. These days you need pretty high-powered graphics cards for games, but when you're not playing, what else is there for the GPU to do? It might as well loaf through drawing a few 3D transparent windows, in between tapping its fingers.

    • Am I the only one that thinks the whole aero craze is over the top. Is it really that important to be able to see through some of your windows and have them displayed in "3d"?

      From playing around with XGL, I think that there is some advantage to a 3d-accelerated UI (aside from the "ooh, pretty" advantage), though the insane requirements for Vista reduce the advantage (I mean, yeah, its nice to offload some CPU work to the GPU, especially work that mostly gets done when you aren't already running GPU inten

    • Am I the only one that thinks the whole aero craze is over the top. Is it really that important to be able to see through some of your windows and have them displayed in "3d"?

      Windows Aero is an environment with an additional level of visual sophistication, one that is even more responsive and manageable, providing a further level of clarity and confidence to Windows users. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline your computing experience by refining common window elements so you can bett

  • "plenty"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bill Dog ( 726542 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:13PM (#15550235) Journal
    The 1Ghz CPU and 1GB RAM and DirectX 9 graphics is understandable, but what exactly does "plenty" of video RAM mean? For the full-blown Aero "experience" do I need 512 or 256 or 1024 or what?

  • "what some are calling "... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Osrin ( 599427 ) * on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:21PM (#15550284) Homepage
    Sometimes it is hard to tell if this is Slashdot or Fox News.

  • Basic Question No One Has Asked (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:22PM (#15550290) Homepage

    The public Beta is out. Anybody actually TRIED running this AND applications on the barebones spec of 800MHz and 512MB of RAM as well as the 1GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM?

    By apps, I mean the current version of Microsoft Office with Word and Excel open at the same time, and the IE browser open, and maybe Messenger, and the usual tray full of crap most people run.

    I want to hear a REAL-WORLD test from the people using the public Beta on REAL machines.

    I find it hard to believe that everybody INCLUDING MICROSOFT was talking about 3GHz machines and 1GB of RAM at a minimum last year, and now suddenly we're down to 800MHz CPUs?

    What's wrong with this picture? Don't blame it on the media because Microsoft ITSELF was talking those specs last year.

    • Re:Basic Question No One Has Asked (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ThinkFr33ly ( 902481 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:31PM (#15550372)
      Yes, kinda.

      I've been running beta 2 on an Athlon 1.2Ghz / 512MB / Radeon 9800 128MB setup. I would consider this pretty much bare bones.

      How does it run? Well, considering it uses about 800 MB of ram just sitting there, suprisingly well. This memory usage is almost certainly due to the fact it's a beta. I remember beta 2 of XP used like 600 MB of ram just sitting there.

      But given the fact that on XP if you're using that much more ram than you have you'd be swapping like crazy, Vista runs suprisingly smoothly. I rarely notice UI lag, even when opening up new applications. In fact, the UI lag on Vista beta 2 is better than on my primary desktop running XP. (My primary desktop has 2 GB of ram, and a 3.8 Ghz P4.)

      The Vista search features are very fast as well.

      Of course, the iffy specs of my test machine cause some things to be painfully slow. Opening an explorer folder with hundreds of videos in it will takes a very long time to render all the previews. (The folder itself, however, comes up almost instantly.)

      Assuming they cut the memory requirements by 50% post beta (which is close to what we saw with XP), Vista would run just fine for "normal" use on that old Athlon. No games, probably no coding, etc.
      • Not to sound like a fan-boy here (I'm a 70% windows, 30% mac guy), but I've been running Beta 2 for a couple days too. The first thing i wanted to see was the new search, and i was kind of disappointed that its still not as quick as apple's 'spotlight' feature. Sure, it functions the same way, but you still have to pull up that separate Search window like previous versions of windows, plus the search itself isn't as fast as it is on the mac. maybe its just preference, but i like how the spotlight isn't a s

      • Assuming they cut the memory requirements by 50% post beta (which is close to what we saw with XP), Vista would run just fine for "normal" use on that old Athlon. No games, probably no coding, etc.

        So with those "barbones" specs (my desktop is very similar) and Vista, you'd get a glorified Internet browsing and email machine? It pains me a little that a fairly decent computer couldn't even be a development machine under this new OS, yet it does games and .NET development just fine under XP.

        • That "fairly decent machine" is about 6 years old. It plays 6 year old games like a champ. Put FEAR or Doom 3 on there and, regardless of the OS, you'll have problems.

          The point of my post was to show that Vista appears to run just about as well as XP on old machines despite all the new eye candy and nifty features.

          Leave it to Slashdotters to find fault in anything and everything Microsoft.
    • Tried an alpha build on a dual processor 1.3ghz xeon box with 512mb ram and it ran like molasses in the winter, mainly because it was paging so much stuff to disk (lord knows what, I hadn't installed anything but the os)...
      Haven't installed the beta because I was scarred by that experience.
      Hopefully this will stop OEMs from selling machines with 128mb of ram.
    • I find it hard to believe that everybody INCLUDING MICROSOFT was talking about 3GHz machines and 1GB of RAM at a minimum last year, and now suddenly we're down to 800MHz CPUs?

      I think it might be that Microsoft finalized the farm-to-GPU capabilities on all the special effects.

  • 1GB of ram for semi-transparent windows? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:23PM (#15550301) Journal
    Wow. I'm sure it's not competely fair to say this since both technologies are new and Aero is a bit more than just window borders, but right now XGL is making Aero looks like a slow bloated piece of crap.

    Cue someone pointing to that wikipeida entry which shows all those great features coming with Vista....
  • could it have something to do with the fact that there are only a handful of monitors supporting HDCP? Many of the monitors I know of also happen to be TVs, including the Samsung 940MW and NEC20WMGX2. Oh, and don't forget the fact that we have yet to see a video card with HDCP support.

    I really suspect this has more to do with HDCP not being a "requirement" then the fact that the studios have vowed, for now, to not force the use of HDCP supported outputs for full resolution viewing.

  • hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by loraksus ( 171574 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:26PM (#15550331) Homepage
    Well, at least Dell, HP and Acer are happy. Wonder if MS owns any stock in those companies...
  • Yeah, we had thought about building "Vista Ready" machines here in our store, but after the owner checked on how difficult it would be... we decided against it. We would basically have to mail off (and pay a fee) every specs of every system to Microsoft inorder for them to assure that the system would be able to run Windows Vista. There were no package deals either where we could build multiple systems of the exact same specs... so it was going to cost a ton just for a little sticker on the front. But anyh

  • It just occured to me... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:46PM (#15550471)
    ...so the "Vista approved" sticker means that the machine in question has been certified to have a "protected digital path".

    Ok. In other words, only machines that do NOT have that sticker could at least in theory have this piece of DRM-crap NOT installed.

    Thanks for the warning label. I shall heed it.

  • Bring it on! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Neptune0z ( 930626 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @02:49PM (#15550486)
    Im predicting that around 2008, we're gonna see a hugh surge in interest of alternative OS's like linux and *nixs; Coincidently this is gonna occur just slightly after everyone's gets their hands on Vista only to discover that all the DRM'd crap has severly limited what people can do. And their really gonna be pissed of when they discover that everything on their system is just being leased or rented and not really owned by them... Being of sound mind, and a reasonable person; I can see where M$ is headed with all this...Needless to say I wont be installing it EVER (period). Microsoft seems to have forgotten a basic economic principle; in the end the consumer will decide what to consume... Bring it on guys! We're ready...
  • This is a serious question, is this going to be installable on Mac OS X as Windows XP is? Does the Macintosh computer need or have all of these items (such as DirectX graphics card able??)? Or would virtualization software be able to take care of this stuff (Parallels..)?

    • These requirements are for the "Vista Premium" experience. Requirements for Vista to run (and get the "Vista Basic" look and whatnot--from what I can tell from using Beta 2 it's like Aero without the transparency, shadows, and glowy-ness) are slightly lower, and I'm sure most Intel Macs will be able to handle that, at least.

  • as the installer for the 64-bit version of Vista boots and then BORKS on my e-machine (AMD 64-bit processor inside).

    Another quality Microsoft product!

  • ...the requirements to make Windows Vista run well make the PS3 look more attractive as a computer. :)
  • I see this as a major problem. Microsoft inflated the system requirements against the trend amongst OEM to use Intel video chipset and lowend chipsets in budget and mid range PCs. I can see this as at the very least a source of confusion. Instead looking at the cards you going to have add it to the main memory to figure out you requirement or if your system can even handle it. Also, I suspect that a great many notebook out there today in business, government, and consumer pc won't be able to even run Premiu
  • Put all those features into a computer and you essentially have an XBox360-ish looking device. We have known for several years that most of the console game companies want to market their consoles as home computers, but have always been squashed by real computers.

    Instead of making a console system into a PC, Microsoft seems to want to turn the PC into a console. They are quite crafty. If you can't beat the PC market with a console, you just sabatoge the PC market.
  • Microsoft Windows "Hasta la Vista", 'Baby' edition.
    • one (1) EMC Symmetrix DMX Storage array of at least 1 petabyte (1 x 10^15 bytes) (recommend the 15k RPM drives)
    • one (1) (Beowulf) Cluster of 1000 overclocked Athlon 64 FX-powered blades in a liquid nitrogen cooling element, 2.5 GB RAM ea.
    • one (1) OC-48 Pipe for downloading updates
    • one (1) array of Trusted Computing Crippleware to make sure you can't play any media or games
    • one (1) array of 1000 SLI GeForce 7950 graphics cards

    There you go. Should be able to run Office with that baseline configuration,

  • What HDCP is about (Score:3, Interesting)

    by njdj ( 458173 ) on Friday June 16, 2006 @04:18PM (#15551168)
    there are some surprises in there, such as a delayed requirement for HDCP

    For those who (like me) did not know what HDCP is: it stands for "High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection", and its purpose is to prevent the PC's owner from using the PC to copy certain media. Fuller and more precise information can be found here [wikipedia.org]. It's basically a component that you pay for, that reduces the capability of your computer. I wonder which consumers are demanding something like that ...

  • Why should I care about these things?

    I thought it was just a guide to things useful to run Vista well, but what's the deal with HDMI "not being required until later this year". Required for what exactly? To get a free Microsoft sticker to put on your PC saying "This computer meets the Vista Premium requirements"? To become a personal friend with Steve Ballmer? How can a requirement suddenly change for the exact same operating system?

    If you have HDMI support before it's required for Premium, won't it be as u

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close