Make your PC Vista perfect

With Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system now in stores around the world, lots of PC users are wondering whether their machines are up to the task of running it.

One way to find out is to read the “minimum requirements” notes on the side of the Windows Vista box. But few take this seriously. So what do you really need in your computer to be a happy Windows Vista user?

Microsoft says that your PC should have at least a 1 gigahertz (GHz) processor, 512 megabytes of system memory (RAM) for Home Basic and 1 GB for other editions, at least 15 GB of free hard drive space and a graphics card that supports DirectX 9 and has 128 MB of onboard RAM.

Few who have used Vista for any length of time, however, would consider running it for long on such a bare-bones machine. The result would be intolerable delays, constant disk swapping resulting in more delays, and a virtual inability to do any serious multitasking.

Users can get by with 1 GB of memory (RAM) in Vista, but if one has to do much of multitasking, you'll want 2 GB. RAM is so inexpensive these days that there's little reason not to start out right away with 2 GB, unless you're working on a machine that won't accept 2 GB.

But beware. The 32-bit version of Vista, which most of us will want to run, can “see” only up to 4 GB of memory. Even machines with 4 GB of RAM will not have the full 4 GB available for programmes because Vista reserves some memory for system processes.

If you want more than 4 GB of RAM, you'll need to install the 64-bit version of Vista, which comes standard along with the 32-bit version in many editions of the operating system.

Vista runs well on virtually every processor commonly sold in desktop and notebook computer today. That includes single, dual, and quad-core chips.

All editions of Vista support multiple core processors, but only Vista Business, Ultimate and Enterprise editions have built-in support for more than one physical processor in the same machine.

But remember that multiple core processors sandwich two or more processors on one chip. However, there are computers available that employ two separate processing chips, regardless of whether they're single, dual, or quad core.

Only Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise support the latter systems. When it comes to which processor to buy for Vista, faster the better.