Microsoft has officially announced the minimum system requirements for a PC to install and operate Windows Vista.
Today (May 18), the developer is expected to unveil detailed information about two marketing programs that will provide complete information to manufacturers or retailers regarding whether their products can install and run Windows Vista.
The “Vista-capable” program lists the minimum requirements a PC needs to meet in order to run the latest version of the Windows operating system. Meanwhile, the “Premium Ready” program will help classify PCs that can fully utilize the advanced features of Vista, such as the Aero graphical interface.
To receive the “Vista-capable” label, a PC must be equipped with at least an 800MHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a graphics card that fully supports DirectX 9. These basic requirements are relatively similar to the guidelines Microsoft provided earlier.
On the other hand, to achieve the “Premium Ready” label, a PC must have at least a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 128MB video card that supports Vista’s new graphics engine model.
The amount of graphics memory required to run Vista may also depend on the number of displays a PC is using. If the PC utilizes multi-display functionality or a large screen, more memory will be necessary.
The main goal of these programs is to assist PC manufacturers in determining features and classifying new PC systems. It also provides detailed information to users to help them understand whether their systems are capable of upgrading to the new operating system.
On the same day, Microsoft will release a trial version of the upgrade advisor tool. This tool allows users to automatically analyze which version of Vista their system can upgrade to or which version of Vista can be installed and used, and it will provide software upgrade recommendations. This tool is also integrated into Vista.
Hoàng Dũng
