I expect the 2009 OS will be a server release, not a successor to Vista. Windows server 2008.
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Do you think Bill got his measurement wrong? 640MB maybe!

And yes, it is very out of order for an OS to need that just to boot. But saying that even the most popular Distros of Linux now require at least 256MB to install and boot which I think needs to be looked at as that is getting too much. I have Fedora 4 on my old laptop with 128MB of ram, but can't upgrade to version 7 as it doesn't have enough ram!
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@Harrison

I have to admit (sorry for the OT guys)

but I found Fedora core 3 better than the latter models... mind you saying that I miss my slackware build.... sigh....

there really is no need for hundreds of megabytes for booting... an operating system is by nature there to facilitate resrouces not suck them dry!

crazy!
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I think for this you still can't beat Workbench/Amiga OS. It has always been a light weight OS in terms of resources needed compared to nearly every other OS.
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So I got a bit fed up of messing about with updates for the copy of XP MCE that Harrison ('lent' - Ed.) to me and bought an (OEM, natch) copy of Vista 64 home premium.

Full experience to follow later but so far I'm actually quite impressed. It's very neat and looks good. Took a bastard long time to install though - so long, in fact, that I went to bed and left it running overnight.

I kept XP on the machine as well, just in case
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Vista 64 drivers are meant to be much better now compared to the problems they had when it first launched. And with the 64 bit version you can utilise a full 4GB of ram in your system if you wished.

Older pre DX10 games will however still run faster in XP.
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Mm, yes. I have some faulty sticks of RAM to go back to crucial - I just got another set to try. Turns out they were the reason for those fookin BSODs that were plaguing me. Now the system seems rock-steady with this new set. I am pleased.

When I get replacements for the old ones I'll have 4gig RAM. Probably overkill but why the hell not?

Was quite surprised at how easy it was to get 64 bit drivers. Was a bit concerned it may be fiddly but it all seems OK so far. There's a few unidentified things showing in device manager - think it's something to do with the chipset ACPI something or other. Will go back and use the XP lists to get details and then try and hunt down the vista stuff. Everything seems to be runnig OK so I'm not too concerned at the moment.

IE is a bit slow. Think it's to do with all the phishing/spam/spyware scanny stuff on top of what was an already slow (compared to firefox) browser. Apparently FF3 is buggy on Vista64. I've yet to try it, but will be looking to get back to using FF soon as my main browser.

I can boot to XP MCE still easily enough. One thing though - the boot selection screen only appears for a brief second. If I want to boot XP I have to be ready to jab the keyboard quickly before the selection disappears and vista boots. Any way to give me a little longer to choose?
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You can set the timer and other options for the boot menu in the BIOS setup I think. Hit DEL or F1 (varies) immediately when booting the PC to enter it.
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If JT is on about the boot menu provided by Windows, then this time delay is set in the boot.ini file on the boot disk.

timeout=3 will set the delay to 3 seconds.

Alternatively it can be set in Control Panels/System Properties/Advanced/Startup and Recovery.
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Well, yeah. But I was sure you could do that from the BIOS as well? Guess I remembered it wrong then, I haven't had more than on OS on a system in years. Sorry for any confusion then.
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