768 MB RAM and Home Basic

[Kris Dee]

Hello,

Many websites show the minimum system requirements for Vista Home Basic:
they say 512 MB RAM will do.

I have this "old" PC (P4 1.7 GHz, 3 x 256 MB RAM, Geforce6200 64-bit), a
"Siemens Scenic T", and I am wondering if "Home Basic" will run smootly on
this machine.

Although it meets the minimum system requirements, I need to know if "Home
Basic" _WILL_ run smoothly on this computer.

Nothing "special" will be done on this machine, just internet, some basic
word processing à la MS Word, opening photographs, listening to music (MP3),
watching the average online movie like on YouTube.

Before I spend money on Vista (Home Basic) for this computer, I sort of need
to know if it will run "normally" with the above mentioned specifications.

Perhaps this question may have been asked a zillion times by now... so a
simple "Yes" will do for me...

Thanks.

 

[Gordon]

Hello,

Many websites show the minimum system requirements for Vista Home Basic:
they say 512 MB RAM will do.

MS has consistently and constantly refused to acknowledge that their system
specifications are woefully understated, neither do they make ANY attempt to
change them in the face of reality. It is common knowledge that the MINIMUM
RAM for XP is 256 MB with 512 MB being the optimum yet MS STILL says on it's
website that the min spec is 128 MB with 64!!! Yes 64!!! MB supported. It's
common knowledge that 2GB is the optimum RAM for Vista yet the MS website
STILL says 1Gb RAM. Yes you can run Vista on 1GB but its not very fast,
particularly if you have Office 2007 as well....
Why MS do this is beyond me....why not be up front with the specs and above
all, why not CHANGE them in the light of user experience?

 

[David B.]

If it were mine, I would not put Vista on it, it'll run probably, but it'll
be slow.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

768mb is sufficient ram to run Vista Home Basic. "Smoothly" depends on more
than ram. You will have to try it to see for sure. No one can predict that
confidently unless they happen to be running VHB on your exact
configuration.

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Hello,

Many websites show the minimum system requirements for Vista Home Basic:
they say 512 MB RAM will do.

I have this "old" PC (P4 1.7 GHz, 3 x 256 MB RAM, Geforce6200 64-bit), a
"Siemens Scenic T", and I am wondering if "Home Basic" will run smootly on
this machine.

Although it meets the minimum system requirements, I need to know if "Home
Basic" _WILL_ run smoothly on this computer.

Nothing "special" will be done on this machine, just internet, some basic
word processing à la MS Word, opening photographs, listening to music
(MP3),
watching the average online movie like on YouTube.

Before I spend money on Vista (Home Basic) for this computer, I sort of
need
to know if it will run "normally" with the above mentioned specifications.

Perhaps this question may have been asked a zillion times by now... so a
simple "Yes" will do for me...

Thanks.

Personally, I would stay with XP if I owned your machine..


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[Kris Dee]

Will it be slow even without Aero?

Surely opening the Start menu, or a program window, or starting a program,
or surfing the Net, or whatever, should go with the aforementioned hardware
and Vista Home Basic?

I am not interested in Aero or any other special visual effects (When I want
to have _real_ visual effects, then I will startup linux with Compiz/Fusion),
I only would like to know if Vista (home basic) would run smoothly on this
machine.

 

[BurrWalnut]

Here’s a reply from someone who is actually dual-booting Vista Home Premium
SP1 on a 1.4GHz CPU, 768MB Dell laptop. It has a Windows Experience index of
1 due to the poor graphics. WinXP SP3 is on drive C (10GB), Vista on drive D
(23GB) and odd data on drive E (4GB). I clean installed XP SP2 OEM followed
by the SP3 update then Vista SP1 OEM.

The sidebar is running three gadgets. Defender, UAC, indexing and
hibernation are off. No automatic Avast functions are running. Windows Media
Center runs although I’m not into music or video very much.

And, how does it behave? Surprisingly well. My main criticism is that the
Works word processor loads slowly and there is a delay in cutting/pasting
between documents. My Works is the version that is shipped with XP not the
latest one, so this may be the problem.

For the sake of £60 (here in England), I suggest you get it and, as a bonus,
presumably Vista Home Basic will run a bit faster.

Oh, and I tested the Vista beta versions on 512MB.