Is your computer ready for Windows Vista?

Geoff Rasmussen

08 Jan 2007

Windows Vista is the next big operating system for PCs. Can you believe Windows XP was released clear back in 2001? Vista is supposed to be available towards the end of January, and will be available in several versions.

Vista will require a lot more "umpf" from your computer – 2 GB of memory, 20 GB of free hard disk space, and a DVD drive. If you decide to upgrade to Vista, you will first need to see if your computer has what it takes to run it.

For an overview of Vista’s new features, click here.

To see if your computer is capable of running Vista, click here.

For an interesting discussion of Vista from a genealogy technologist’s point of view, read Joe Edmon’s article here.

Comments (6)

My question is, since this is a Legacy website, where are the comments on how Legacy will function with Vista?

My concern right now is not whther or not Vista is going to be a good OS. My concern is how many of my programs will support only the new OS and no longer support XP. With MS I have learned not to rush into their first output. There are usually many, many bugs that need fixing and I’ll wait for awhile before upgrading. I’m definitely not in a hurry.

Come on Greg! It is perfectly possible to be both a devoted genealogist and a computer freak. I know quite some myself (including myself…).
I think the stigma of genealogists as elderly persons roaming around dusty archives, owning a 1987 PC with DOS is long since outdated, if it was ever true in the first place.
I’m looking forward to Vista and actually I find that most professional reviews do think of it as a major improvement to XP, not just a face lift.
Legacy is going to look quite nice there.

I, for one, am not going with this upgrade. I’m tired of MS telling me not only that I need their OS but that I need special hardware to do it as well to get the full “vista” effect. If only Legacy ran on Mac systems, I would switch in a heartbeat!

I don’t think we will have a real read on how good or bad the new system is for a year, then they will have the bugs out of it and there will be some new software written.
I’m glad to see the system advance and think in the long run it will be to all our advantages. We run many more programmes than just Genealogy, photos and OCR are two which go hand in hand with Genealogy. Audio is coming on as well.

I’m certainly not going to go so far as to suggest that Vista is going to be a flop, but given the number of negative reviews for the OS that are out there I don’t see myself changing over to it for the forseeable future. My computer is certainly capable of running it, but I’ve seen nothing in the feature list to make me want to change. It appears to be nothing more than the same old same old with a different name stuck on it.
I can’t see the majority of computer-using genealogists having a system that is capable of smoothly running Vista in the first place. When I think of genealogists visions of bleeding edge computer users don’t exactly come to mind. I’m sure some may be excited about something new coming along, but I can’t imagine the majority of genealogists caring one whit about a new version of Windows when their current system works just fine.