April 1st, 2006
No Vista, but Vista Capable stickers coming soon
No fooling, Microsoft is prepping new Windows Vista Capable stickers for PCs, in anticipation of the release of the 50 million lines of Vista code to business users (end of 2006) and consumers (beginning of 2007 if all goes well). Given the shifting ship date for Vista, some reassurance for PC buyers was in order. It’s still an open question whether consumers who purchase PCs when Vista ships for business users this year will get some kind of discount or free upgrade to Vista Home edition when it becomes available in the retail channels.
The hardware requirements for passing the current certification requirements for Designed for Windows XP logo include a "modern" CPU, 512MB or more of memory, and a DirectX 9 class graphics processor (preferably with Windows Display Driver Model support). Support for the new Aero user interface require increased video RAM, depending on the monitor resolution. Intel also has recommendations, as does AMD, for processors and related chip sets.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
