Microsoft is preparing to release it's new operating system, named Vista. According to some the release will come as early as January 30th 2007.

Vista promises to deliver a lot more security features, and built in protection from internet hackers, scammers and scoundrels. Moreover, Vista promises to bring us the multimedia experience none of us ever asked for, er... I mean expected.

The new desktop comes with a process called Aero which allows you to have open multiple windows, and see right through them, making multitasking much simpler. Also, holding your mouse over an item on the task bar will produce a miniature window with full detail, even a video will display a miniature window including full motion video. It really is pretty cool.

There are a few issues that concern us, the obvious one being the fact that most of the hardware out there will be made obsolete by the release of Vista.

Yep, you're gonna need a new PC to run it, and I'm not talking about some $299 econobox from Dell.

Now Microsoft tells us that it isn't true, they say the minimum spec is an 800 MHz processor with 512M of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. Of course the Aero desktop won't work with those specs. Now Microsoft says that the "premium edition" will run with 1GHz and 1 GB of RAM with a 128MB DirectX9 compatible video card and 40GB of hard drive space. By the way, you'll also need a DVD ROM as a minimum also.

The problem we have with this is these minimum specs are historically bogus. Remember them telling us Windows 95 would run 32 bit multitasking under 4MB of RAM? Well it would, if you had enough time. Windows XP still claims it only needs a Pentium 233MHz (300MHz recommended), 128M of RAM, and a 1.5GB hard drive.
I would not recommend anyone try running XP (SP2) with less then a 1GHz CPU or less then 256M of RAM. Additionally, a full install of XP (SP2) with MS Office small business takes more than 4GB of hard drive space not counting the swap file or any data. So what if I extrapolate those numbers you'll need a 3GHz CPU, and a GB of RAM with a 160GB hard drive to run Vista at the lowest possible level. When the first Service Pack comes out, those specs will be too wimpy.

So as they say in one of the car shows I like to watch, "Do you really need an OS like this?"

Well, no. Windows XP has proved to be very stable, and the service packs have kept up with the security issues nicely. It works well in the Windows 2000/2003 Server environment and it runs well on the cheap hardware you already have.

But you ask "What about all that eye candy I'm going to miss?" My 64MB Nvidia Geforce 4MX video card came with software that gave me some of those features years ago. And I've seen utilities on Toshiba notebooks and on Major Geeks.com that offer similar computing experiences.

The 2nd part of the question is "Do you even want an OS like this?"

Hell yes. Vista is a beautiful piece of work.
One last warning though, there will be several versions of Vista, like XP there will be a Home and a Pro version but there are actually three home versions, two business versions, and an "Ultimate" version. Plus all of the versions will be available in 32 bit and 64 bit variations.

It looks like all of these versions are going to be more expensive then before. According to this article on ZDNet, Amazon.com just announced a release date of January 30th and pricing, (which Microsoft refuses to confirm) and Vista Home basic will sell at $199, Home Premium will be $239, and Ultimate will run $399.

-Steve Weigle