Viva Vista

After running Vista RC1 for about two weeks I have a few comments that I would like to share with the rest of the techies out there.   I installed it on a Dell Dimension 2350, P4 2.2GHZ, 400 MHZ FSB, 512MB RAM, 40GB Western Digital HDD, DVD ROM, CDRW.  That was after downloading it from the Microsoft Website and burning it onto a DVD.

First things first Vista is a space hog, taking between 10 and 12 GB of hard disk space.  That aside the installation is much like installing XP with an animated screen highlighting each step asking for user input when needed.  After installing you go through the normal tour when running it for the first time and the found new hardware wizard installs all the drivers that didn’t get installed during the initial setup.

Second besides the initial price tag that is going to be on Vista when it debuts into stores end of January 2007, it looks to turn your PC into a money pit.  It does this by evaluating your systems hardware and then gives you a score between 1 and 4, 4 being the best.  If your ranks lower than a 4 a link appears saying: "Click here to learn ways to increase my score."  Upon clicking the link you are taken to a site that shows you products used to upgrade your system for the optimal Vista experience.  In my case it was a $400 video card sporting NVidia's latest chip set that is Direct X 10.0 ready.

Last Vista is lacking in the drivers department.  Granted it's a ready for certification copy and not a final release, but you would expect it to at least have all the drivers that Windows XP has wouldnt you?  Not the case.  On the Dell test system Vista failed to supply the drivers for the Pixel View TV Tuner card installed in a PCI slot, but at the end of my test when I reinstalled XP Pro the drivers were installed and the tuner worked flawlessly.