Microsoft today released the minimum hardware requirement specifications for the upcoming Windows Vista operating system.

From the press release, found here:

To qualify as Capable or Premium Ready, PCs must meet or exceed the following requirements:

	Windows Vista Capable	Windows Vista Premium Ready
Processor:	Modern processor (at least 800 MHz)1	1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)1
System Memory:	512 MB	1 GB
GPU:	DirectX® 9 capable (Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) support recommended)	Runs Windows Aero2
Graphics Memory:	- -	128 MB
HDD:	- -	40 GB
HDD Free Space:	- -	15 GB
Optical Drive:	- -	DVD-ROM drive3
Audio:	- -	Audio output capability
Internet:	- -	Internet access capability

Simultaneously, there is a beta release of the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, the details of which can be found here. This software attempts to determine the suitability of your system for an upgrade to Vista.

While there are no surprises here, the question remains, "Will OEMs follow through?"

And that is a very poignant question.

Right now, even Tier-1 OEMs tease suckers customers with door-buster systems with the absolute minimum specs required to run XP, leaving the cattle purchasers bereft of the entire XP experience.

For which they are free to blame Microsoft.

Contrast that with the Mac experience where you have an entire system built to provide a total experience, an experience totally deserving of it's price premium relative to PCs.

I hope Microsoft finds a way, due to both antitrust/legal decrees, and commercial considerations, to enforce certain rigid hardware, and default security state requirements of OEMs as necessary to obtain both Vista-capable and Vista Premium certifications. I mean, who needs the craplets OEMs install on both consumer and business PCs? Who???
Copyright © 2006, John Obeto II for SmallBizVista.com®