It seems all the people using XP today have no hope to upgrade to a safer (???) Windows Vista.

This seems really funny when you can run Linux/FreeBSD on a 486 (or, w/ an older kernel, even on a 386, I think).

I'm so happy I use Linux!

OMFG this topic is probably the most misquoterd and mis-understood topic. Simply put APC magazine simply misunderstood what was beign said published it and caused all sorts of stupidity among the computing crowd. The requirements for the system is no higher then that of Windows XP. The only new thing is in order to use the 3D accelerared interface you need a DX9 capable card.

iv read a few times and seen on da news that it will be a minimum of 512MB of ram,

Well they lie then. MS has announced a minimum of 64mb of memory and recommended 128mb. Which we can all take to mean 256mb of memory.

Even XP chugs a fair bit with only 64 MB of RAM.
I fail to see why we should expect any better from Vista.

I've read that you need a DX9 supported graphics card with at least 64 Mb of memory to support the new Aero(?) gui otherwise you will be forced to use the classic (read: old) gui. Most computers with integrated graphics aren't expected to be able to run the new interface.

I've also read that any computer showing the "designed for Windows XP" logo "should" be able to run Vista.

Can't be bothered to post the links to the articles but they are easily reachable from google.

Most integrated graphics are from intel and Intel Extreme graphics is anything but extreme.

I expect this to change with the release of Vista, intel will produce Inbtel Extremem Graphics 3 which will probably be DX9 capable. Personaly I think this is a good thing. I am getting rather bored with traditional 2-D desktops. I can hardly wait for 3D accelerated desktops on my PC (read:not a mac)

And yeah I know Xp can't run on 64mb of ram heck I don't even recommend 128mb I usually recommend AT least 256mb preferably 512mb. But with ram so cheap the only people who will suffer are those who got a dirt cheap machine and most of those people probably won't payto upgrade anyways. Like usual most people upgrading to longhorn will be those who are buying a new computer with it preinstalled.

I meant the graphics card had to have at least 64Mb of memory, the system memory it seems needs to be (again from an article found easily by searching google) at least 512Mb for the system to be useable. Which is ridiculous, even today PC vendors are only offering 512MB of RAM as an expensive upgrade option.

I did read another article where apparently Vista would run on systems with memory as low as 128 MB but I expect having had to wait 3 hours for the computer to boot the only programs that would be able to run without crashing at startup are IE and MS Notepad.

Even that is not an unearthly requirement. You could quite easily grab a new video card and a few hundred megabytes worth of RAM for an agreeable price as you picked up a copy of Vista ...

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... and shoved it in the nearest trash-can as you picked up a fresh copy of Linux!

Windows is starting to be aimed for richer and richer people. Everyone would be moving to Linux and or other free (or cheeper) operating systems soon.

Windows has always been aimed at the richer user!

Back in the day, we were always amazed at the ammount of memory needed to make windows run properly compared to what it said on the box!

I guess the biggest problem is that Windows is first and foremost aimed at the US market (which is a very rich market compared to the rest of the world) and the rest of use have to comprimise!

BTW, this is being written on a 300Mhz notebook - Linux is so cool!

as far as the first post was concerned - did they mean that the base memory had to be DDR3? If this is the case, its going to be a sideswipe at AMD who are not likely to be using that fast RAM by then.

I beg to differ. I thought I was leet when I got my computer about a year ago with 1GB of RAM, now though, you can't buy a computer with less. Even the major retail chains that charge way more than they should for computers, they all have 1GB of RAM. Even the laptops I'm starting to look at have 1GB, my PC is out-of-date. It makes me so sad