Is your system ready for Vista?

My work PC scored horribly on the Windows Vista readiness checker. The reason was my video card only had 256 megabytes of video ram and the fact that my hard drive was 7200RPMs which was �not ideal� for Windows vista to properly run. I just bought my work PC back in October and the fact that I am just above average for Vista readiness scares me. If I bought the top of the line Pentium 4 last year, I must be running an ancient box for Vista�s standards.

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Of note, my work PC�s specs are pretty standard. It is a Dell Dimension 9200 sporting a Core2Duo E6600 clocked at 2.4GHz, 2 gigabytes of ram, an Nvidia 7300 graphics card, Seagate barracuda at 7200 RPMs and a few other standard features like a dual-layer DVD burner and a 7.1 channel sound card. The system is extremely fast with Windows xp, naturally, but Microsoft thinks I need a faster computer. I have serious concerns regarding running Vista. Maybe I should have gone for 4gbs of ram and a 7900GTX video card with dual Raptor 10k drives or perhaps the E6700 chip that offers a slightly faster clock speed is the ticket.

Microsoft�s Windows Vista capable specs are pretty low asking for a 1GHz+ processor, 512mbs of ram and they only require a fast video card if you�re going to run the Aero user interface. Aero offers 3d windows, elements and super cool transparency effects throughout the gui and is half of the fun that Vista offers. I feel that everyone should upgrade their box before going for Vista. In the meantime, I don�t think anyone will make fun of you for doing so. At the end of the day, you�ll have a PC that came with Vista (saving you a few hundred bucks) and you�ll have today�s chips and probably rate higher on the Vista readiness adviser than I could ever dream. The next generation Microsoft OS won�t arrive for another 45 days so now is your chance to start shopping around for some cheapstingybargains (also a domain for a list of Dell�s current deals).

What did you use to check your Vista readiness? I used the Vista Upgrade Adviser and it said my system is fully ready. I'm running a custom built machine with P4 2.8 GHz, 1GB DDR RAM, Radeon X1600Pro 512 MB Video.

The only things that it advised upgrading was getting a DVD burner and updating some drivers.

I was merely surprised that i scored as low as I did. For a brand new system, I did not score as well as I thought. Of course, I don't have the 8800 nvidia card or quad core chips but it was a lower rankin than I thought.