Vista Overview
The Choice of a New Generation
Windows Vista was released to the general public on January 30, 2007.
Note: The release date of Windows Vista comes more than five years after the release of Windows XP, Microsoft's current consumer and business operating system. This was the longest time span between major releases of a Windows operating system.
Windows Vista Hardware Requirements
Processor 800 MHz 1 GHz
Memory 512 MB RAM 1 GB RAM
Graphics Card DirectX 9 capable DirectX 9 capable GPU with Hardware Pixel Shader v2.0 and WDDM Driver support
Graphics Memory N/A 128 MB RAM up to 2,756,000 total pixels (e.g. 1920 × 1200) or 512 MB+ for greater resolutions such as 2560x1600[38]
HDD capacity 20 GB 40 GB
HDD free space 15 GB 15 GB
HDD type Normal Normal, but hybrid flash memory/hard disk drive recommended
Other drives N/A DVD-ROM
Windows Vista Development History
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Development of Windows Vista
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Features new to Windows Vista
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History of Microsoft Windows
-
Microsoft Office 2007 — the next release of
Microsoft Office that will ship with or almost
simultaneously to Windows Vista.
- Windows Server "Longhorn" — the successor to Windows Server 2003 and based on the same code-base as Windows Vista.
External Links about Windows Vista
Microsoft Windows Vista Help
From The Microsoft Windows website
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Microsoft Windows Vista — Microsoft Windows Vista
homepage
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Microsoft Windows Vista RC1 — Microsoft Windows
Vista RC1 build 5600 Download Page
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Microsoft Windows Vista Help — Official Windows
Vista Help and Support
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Microsoft Windows Vista Upgrade Info — Windows
Vista Upgrade planning
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Microsoft Windows Vista Product Guide — Contains
complete, feature-by-feature comparisons of the
various Windows Vista editions (current through the
Beta 2 release)
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Microsoft Windows Vista Hardware Design — Hardware
Design for Windows Vista — News for Driver Developers
and Hardware Engineers
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Microsoft Technet — Windows Vista: Resources for
IT Professionals
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MSDN — Windows Vista Developer Center on MSDN
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Windows Communities — Windows Vista Newsgroups
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Windowsvistablog.com — Windows Vista Team Blog
(official)
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Channel 9 on Windows Vista International – The
Making of Windows Vista international
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Vista Reviews and screenshots
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Windows Vista Mega-Review — A lengthy look at
Vista.
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Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows — 'Windows
Vista Activity Center'
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WinVista Beta — 'Windows Vista Screenshot Gallery'
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Piecing together Windows Vista — CNet news portal
for Vista
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Vista Criticism
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CNET — 'Hollywood, Microsoft align on new Windows'
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Technology Review — 'Will Windows Upgrade Hand
Power To Big Media?'
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PC Stats — 'Windows Vista, HDCP and Digital Rights
Management'
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Yahoo News — 'Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista
(and "five things that will give you pause")'
- Wired News — EULA La Vista, Baby
