windows vista questions. (pc)

[Nitromaster]

I maybe upgrading to vista tomorrow, just have a few questions first.

1.How much ram does vista like? I currently have 1gb in this pc, with two free slots.

2.Can you install windows messenger (non-live) onto vista or otherwise move the files it needs and get it to work?

3. Is is quite fast to install? (Im gonna do the trick to do a clean install with an upgrade version,)

Thanks,

 

[MartyMoe]

I can answer 2 out of 3....

I maybe upgrading to Vista tomorrow, just have a few questions first.

1.How much ram does vista like? I currently have 1gb in this pc, with two free slots.

It likes a LOT. The more, the better. Installed on a 512MB machine, and it loaded, but it wants almost all of the RAM and won't display the Aero interface. On a 1 GB machine it seems to run okay, but because of the new Prefetch stuff, it preloads items that it thinks you will use often into free memory, so the more memory you have, the snappier it should be.

2.Can you install windows messenger (non-live) onto vista or otherwise move the files it needs and get it to work?

Um... not sure. Have to test. I would guess so.....(?)

3. Is is quite fast to install? (Im gonna do the trick to do a clean install with an upgrade version,)

It takes a little longer than a regular XP install-- there is a lot to it-- so be prepared for it to take a while. A lot of it is automatic, though, so you just have to sit and watch the progress bars. I can't remember how long it took, maybe 45 minutes? An hour? That is a guesstimate.

 

[coffey7]

1 gb is enough. In fact 2gb is really not helping me all that much. I might save a little time here and there.

 

[coffey7]

1 gb is enough. In fact 2gb is really not helping me all that much. I might save a little time here and there. The install was much different from xp and did take a little less time.

 

[apfhex]

It takes a little longer than a regular XP install-- there is a lot to it-- so be prepared for it to take a while.

Quite the opposite (for me)! Vista was a way faster install. It's no OS X though.

1. Vista will actually always use all your available RAM for caches, so the more the better. Reviews say 1 GB is probably the minimum you'd want. It runs really well on 2 GB.

2. Maybe, if you can find the required files to get it installed. It's too bad the Live Messenger is so awful. I just use GAIM (and dream of booting back to OS X to use Adium ).