I'm purchasing a laptop at the end of next month, and I want to be able to install 32-bit Vista on it. Currently, I'm looking at a Toshiba Satellite M60 laptop with the following specs:

CPU: Intel Pentium M Processor 760 (2.00GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB)

Ram: 1024MB (512MBx2) 533MHz PC4200 DDR2 SDRAM

Video: ATI MOBILITY RADEON X600 SE PCI-E x16 with 128MB DDR SDRAM

Hard Drive: 60GB HDD (5400rpm)

Are these specs high enough to be able to run Vista, or do I need to go higher? I've read the article on this site about this, but I don't know enough about hardware to really have a firm grasp of what I'm going to need (the above is mostly copy-and-paste).

I would also like to run Aero Glass at a 1680 x 1050 resolution. I understand that this is probably an unrealistic expectation, but I thought I'd ask in case it is possible: Would this video card make this possible? If not, is there a laptop video card currently available that could?

Keep in mind that I don't need resources left for the following things:

- DVDs - I will not be playing DVDs on this laptop
- Music - I will most likely not be listening to music, and definately won't be trying to play visualizations
- Games - I may play some simple 3d games like neverball, but I'd be turning off the glass for this. Definately no modern professional games.

I will, however, be doing programming and compiling with this laptop, as I'm going to be taking college courses to learn how to do this. I haven't owned a laptop before, and I've heard they can get quite hot, so I'm also concerned I could overheat my laptop by doing all this.

I understand that this may be too early to ask these questions, but I'd like to make sure I'm well prepared for Vista if possible. Can anyone help?

You could probably swing Vista with that. I have a suspicion, though, that the Video card will be the bottleneck on the system, more than likely.

If at all else, give it a shot. You'll probably be ok with that, though, since it is the current mid-range offering from ATI on portable systems.

I am running Longhorn on a system comparable to that and it runs fine. Beware, though, the OS requires 6gig of HDD!

Just my two cents.

If you are going to be using the system primarily for programming, why would you even want to bother with Vista at all? From all the press releases that I've seen, Vista doesn't offer programmers anything more than XP does (actually... from experience, XP doesn't even offer anything more than 2000 does). In my programming classes, having a computer with the least amount of bling, the smallest amount of boot time (keep in mind that you might have to reboot your system frequently if you are working with code that could crash your machine), and the least amount of bloatware and background processes offered me the best performance in class. Now if you are interested in having the coolest machine in class, your speed on compile and run times will take a severe hit. Actually, having a lean, fast machine is always the best choice for a machine that you take to class. There is nothing worse than having a machine crash in the middle of a note-taking session and having to wait two minutes for the machine to finish loading back up.

Other things of note from experience in classes:

• Make sure that you have a nice selection of music on your computer and bring a set of headphones when you go to class. There are times when classrooms become free-for-alls. I get easily distracted, so I would never have gotten work done during some classes if I didn't have the ability to drown everyone out with my music.
• Laptops get very hot after extended use. The faster you drain your battery and the more often you access your harddrive, the hotter your laptop will become. Thus, most games quickly turn your laptop into a portable furnace. Most laptops will not overheat unless you block your fan air intakes and exhausts. Never run a laptop on carpets or bedding. As much as possible, place your laptop on a flat, table-like surface and pop out the feet in the back to improve ventilation.

Could someone tell me whether my PC will run Vista, and how well?

Spec-

Pentium 4 3.4ghz ht tec
1gig ram
Nvidia 6600gt
400gb Hard Disk
SB 2 platinum ZS



I will be using web design programs such as Dreamweaver and Flash. And also Paint Shop Pro. I also play a few pretty simple games.

Will my PC be good enough?

Just a random thing
If you are running a laptop with an ATI card on battery "powerplay" must be turned onto max performance to run Vista. This means that the system then eats power like a heavy set man in a cake shop.

Thats only if you want to enable aero (the fancy looking stuff). And im sure it doesnt just go for ati laptops, but some nvidia's as well.

Anyways, my computer runs like butter with the latest release. For some reason though, the install was hanging on my laptop...

it should be fine on that system, ...your CPU, vid and Mobo are all better than mine, and mine runs Vista as well as Vista can run. With all the eye candy the gig of RAM seems a good choice (mine's 2X512 as well). I'm using on-board vid and the "Windows DVD Maker" wouldn't go, whining about vid. All the worse cuz Nero7 burnware won't install on mine and several others that tried, ...give'r a shot, but I'd recommend partitioning that 400 gigs at least in three, keep XP on "C" and install Vista on another partition so you can dual-boot, ...my early assessment is I wouldn't trust the new OS yet for anything real important, ...still what the hell, it's 'beta' and we're supposed to be evaluating it, thus my whining about it at this stage would be for nought ..."the Old Geek"

I have a nagging feeling that when Vista ships, the requirements will be higher. For example, I'm pretty sure that an onboard vid card will not run the aero interface. Also, I somehow feel that 1 gig ram will be the bare minimum for Vista.

Just my two cents.

The minimum requirements for graphics cards from the major vendors include the Radeon 9500 from ATI Technologies and the GeForce FX 5200 from nVidia.