Finally, Microsoft Releases Windows Vista Hardware Requirements

I am an IT Manager for a medium sized software company. We have 250 desktops and laptops all running XP Pro. All of the machines have 512MB with 3x page files with the exception of our development staff which are running at 1GB. My basic users have multiple apps open (CRM apps, office products, financial products, etc...) and have no problems with speed. The development staff have tons of apps open including Delphi, Visual Studio and other .Net applications and have no issues with the exception of compiling which takes a bit but I think thats Hard Drive speed then anything. All of our staff are on a five year life cycle and we only buy new machines meaning our oldest machine was bought April 2001 (I think the slowest ones are 2.0ghz). In Summary, we run apps of all kinds (including video and audio stuff) and XP Pro runs fine on 512MB with multiple apps open. You just have to know how to configure it to do so.

Bonch & Lotsamystuff. If I am understanding it correctly, you are now making a point that Mac OS X is better, because Apple's own system requirements for it are less than Microsoft's requirements for a completely different operating system?

Yes, they both have shiney graphics effects, but there is allot more that an OS has to do besides render an interface, and Vista may well be coming with more features out of the box than Mac OS X - although I doubt that idea will stick with either of you :p

Also, the requirements Paul lists are fairly vauge - how modern does a CPU have to be to count? What are the differing memory requirements in the different editions of Vista?
I'm fairly confident that a user with Home Basic will not need to have the same hardware resources as someone trying to use Vista Ultimate.

" I do a lot of VB and C programming on it and it works really well. In addition, I browse the net on Firefox and IE and Outlook runs in the background, collecting my mail every 5 minutes. Not one problem."

With all due respect, shark, those are pretty lightweight tasks, and a Windows Box with a 3.2GHz processor and 512 MB shouldn't have any problem whatsoever with something so relatively simple.

But the fact remains, that for more complex multitasking, my PC needed a lot more RAM and horsepower to do the work of my lower-end Mac. I'll admit to being somewhat shocked by this, but truth is just truth.

"You might want to look up a psychological term called "projection", because you seem to read a lot into what I actually write."

It's your fault. You didn't specify the amount of RAM on your mac. Naturally, I assumed that you were using the base configuration (which Bonch suggested). I find my Windows Desktop PC with 512MB RAM and and 3.2GHz processor more than enough for my needs. I do a lot of VB and C programming on it and it works really well. In addition, I browse the net on Firefox and IE and Outlook runs in the background, collecting my mail every 5 minutes. Not one problem.

"It's harder for Apple users to up the ram because it costs so much more."

That's disingenuous at best, and you know it. Go to crucial.com and you'll find that RAM for your Mac is no more expensive than ram for your DELL or eMachine, or other PC. Yeah, it's ridiculously expensive at Apple's website, but don't spout crap that you know isn't true.