Hey Geek Guy!
What do I need to run Vista? And, do I have
to run it?

By Bob Finley
Geek Guy has lived in Chicago for a long time. When you stop him on the corner of Wacker & State and ask him the apparently simple question "Excuse me - which way is 100 Wacker Drive?" you might be surprised to find he needs more information. Do you mean North Wacker, South Wacker, East Wacker or West Wacker?"

Microsoft's new Vista operating system has a number of versions -- too many in the opinion of many reviewers. So to clarify an answer to your question about running Vista Geek Guy says:

• Vista Business at a minimum -- stay away from the Home versions - Enterprise & Ultimate are ok, too (Vista versions are like addresses on Wacker Drive. You need more information).
  
  
• 2 gigabytes of RAM.
  
  
• Graphics card capable of supporting Directx 9 and 128 MB of graphics memory. A tip from Geek Guy -- The Vista upgrade advisor tool available for download at Microsoft is probably the quickest way to test your current graphics card. You might also discover a favorite software package or two that won't run in Vista without an upgrade.

One more word on graphics cards and Vista - unless you're a heavy duty gamer or a graphic designer there's a strong probability you'll need a new graphics card to fully support Vista on your existing machine.

Hey Geek Guy - I just ran your answer to the previous question by a techie friend of mine and he says you don't need that much horsepower to run Vista.

Tell your buddy I'll meet him at the far end of the schoolyard at recess and we'll separate the men from the boys. You can also tell your friend that if I'm not there in 30 minutes - start without me.

Sorry but I must disagree with your techie friend. The recommendations above are to adequately support the full Vista environment in a networked office environment. Economize at your own risk, frustration and expense.

Hey Geek Guy - my computer is just a year and a half old and it runs XP Pro just fine. So I can figure it'll run the flavor of Vista you're recommending fine right?

Hey, did I mention I sell real estate in my spare time? I've got some beach front property in Florida I know you'd be interested in. Bring your tech buddy in on the deal too...

Again -- sorry -- recent model machine running XP Pro fine - no guarantee you'll have a satisfactory experience running Vista without upgrades (RAM and graphics card.)

Hey Geek Guy - this is starting to sound kind of complicated, time consuming and expensive. I can just stick with XP Pro indefinitely if I want to right?

You might remember the famous image of Uncle Sam by James Montgomery Flagg dating back to World War I -- "I WANT YOU..." (to join the U.S. Army). Today - "MICROSOFT WANTS YOU..." (to upgrade to Vista).

You won't end up in jail for dodging the draft but considering we're currently playing in Microsoft's sandbox - 93 percent of desktops world-wide run Microsoft is a recent statistic -- sooner or later -- what Microsoft wants Microsoft gets.

As an example showing how what Microsoft wants Microsoft gets: Vendor push - Dell.com and other vendors are keeping an increasingly limited sub-set of their product catalog with an option of XP Pro as an operating system. When Geek Guy last asked the Oracle at Dephi about when XP Pro will disappear from the vendor catalog he got a prediction of 1st Quarter 2008. The Oracle also predicted Cubs will win in a subway World Series series in 2007 but I've got more confidence in the prediction of the demise of XP Pro as an operating system offered on new equipment - 1st Quarter 2008 at the latest.

Hey Geek Guy -- I just got off the phone with a sales rep at Dell.com and he told me XP Pro was obsolete. Are you sure you know what you're talking about?

What are the odds -- you must have had your call directed to my buddy Bill G. in the sales department at Dell. We met in a real estate class.
Bill is a great salesman -- hits his numbers every quarter -- but he gets ahead of himself with this obsolescence talk. The official word from Microsoft - mainstream support for XP Pro through April of 2009, extended support through April of 2014.

It's going to get tougher and tougher to buy a new machine with XP Pro as the installed operating system but obsolete - no - XP Pro has got some life in it yet.

OK Geek Guy - this is about enough technical talk for me in one day - any parting comments or helpful suggestions?

Sure - at this point - I'm advising that you wait, plan and see -- plan now -- implement later. That's what the big boys are doing -- the workstations at Intel & other large companies you'd like to think of as tech. savvy -- they're in no rush. They're making plans but they're not rushing to buy & implement.

You also need to think beyond the individual computer/workstation -- connecting to a server, accessing secure systems -- those are things that are changing w/Vista as well.

If you've been hanging on to some Windows 2000 machines -- when Vista comes in -- 2000 goes out -- supporting three versions of a Microsoft operating system -- you don't want to go there.

Hope it's been helpful - Geek Guy signing off.

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Bob Finley is a Chicago-based independent technology consultant. His email is bob.finley@barfooinc.net

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