VISTA RC1 on VMWARE
by Abinyah Walker
So far the only dissapointing shock has been the voracious use of hard drive space.
After installation, the 'Windows' folder holds 7.07G of files, 525MB of program files, while 'User folders' holds 288 MB. On an 8GB partition that leaves less than 595MB of free space. This is well below the 15% free space needed to properly defragment a hard disk. This is huge in comparaison to previous version of Windows (Server and Workstations/Home), however I must mension that this is Vista Ultimate, and I imagine that other versions of the VistaOS are lighter.
Vista's system requirements are still a fraction of the total resources available on most new computers. A 32 or 64 bit processor running at greater than 800MHz is accurate for the bare use of the OS and is a reasonable requirement for the revamped user interface. A suggested minimum of 128MB of Video RAM does seem high especially a 32-bit color depth minimum. However if you run Vista in 16-bit color you will loose out on those impressive extra alpha channel 'shine and fades'. Using Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) a 16-bit color depth may have a more XP like experience. Other system requiresments are more obvious: DVD-ROM, audio and internet. What is shocking is the suggested hard drive space required to install Vista, 15GB. 40GB hard drives were standard on P4 laptops not too long ago, and users with notebook/laptops would be wise to upgade beyond 80GB before contemplating a Vista upgrade.
I personally do not suggest runing Vista on the suggested minimum, you will miss out on the experience of the new operating system, and there will be complaints about its performance. In my tests, I ran Vista RC1 in a Virtual Machine, and I got great performance and experience out of the system.
Backup/Restore features:
Control Panel:
Security Features:
Maintenance:
System Stability and Crashes:
First explorere crash was and elegant reload, and the appropariate icons remained the system tray.
Windows Meeting Space
