Yes that right, I'm back with yet another review of the Vista Operating System from Microsoft. Of course, as anyone familiar with my previous Vista comments regarding the beta which appeared a few months back - the new Vista is Bigger and Better than ever. Now, don't rush out and make a purchase on the new OS quite yet - I think its important to know what is actually Bigger and Better.

The Bigger
Now that Vista is ready for release, and sent out to production - the packaging is far bigger than before. Oh, and now Vista actually comes with a manual - which is important for the information regarding your Minimum System Requirements. To add to this, the number of supported drivers has also grown in size. Plus, as an added bonus - the amount of memory your system will use just to begin running is far greater than ever imagined.

Bonus - your wallet just got smaller, but thanks to a much longer wait time between clicking on an item in the system and ACTUALLY SEEING THE RESULT - you may be able to clip coupons to recover the cost.

Minimum System Requirements
If you have not had a chance to look over the initial system requirements - specified by Microsoft, you may chuckle at the specification. Not because they are outlandish - because they are not. The problem with the advertised minimum is far lower than what it will ACTUALLY TAKE to run Vista on your machine.

Minimum - as per the Microsoft Vista Website:

Processor - 800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
Memory - 512 MB
HDD - 20 GB
HDD Free Space - 15 GB

Okay, now just to speculate here - remember how the operating system on a machine is meant to be there to handle all the standard tasks of managing the devices in the machine, and allowing you to control which applications to run. Since the onset of the GUI OS, you have also added the ability to control the look and feel of the environment.

Why do I mention this? The operating system requires 15 GB of space to run. Last time I checked, thats alot of space. Heck, with an 800 MHz processor - with a bus speed much slower than that - how in the world can the system run quickly if it has to read and write so often from the disk? Plus - lets get back to what the OS is meant for.

The reason for this rant? I'm getting there -

My Test Box Specification
Processor - Intel Pentium IV 3.2 GHz with Hyper-Threading 32-bit (x86)
Memory - 1 GB
HDD - 56 GB
HDD Free Space - 45 GB

This machine is obviously not the best possible machine, but a P4 with Hyper-Threading is a decent machine.

The down side - this operating system is horrid. I use the Test Box specification for my development box both at work and on the road, and was unable to feel comfortable in any environment in Vista - not because the OS wasn't nice - as I said - there was a Better - I do like a number of the new features - but bottom line:

VISTA IS WAY TO SLOW AND TO LARGE

When I need a ride to the airport - do I hop into a Taxi or onto an Elephant? I suppose it simply comes down to choice, but for me - I need optimal performance for both development and for gaming - Vista is not the right choice here. XP - I have long awaited your replacement, and have struggled with your inconsistencies - but Vista is not your replacement.

:-) Cannot agree more. I work with customers that use SBS 2003 and mostly WinXP clients. I cannot see any reason at all to upgrade to Vista.