2 gigs is the bare minimum to run Vista, and it won't run it well. You should see much better results with 4GB.
Another happy Vista user here with all the Aero stuff turned on full. I do have 4GB of RAM and a very nice video card, though.
I ran 32-bit Windows Vista on 2 gig machines for over a year. The processors were failry modern (a dual core and then a quad core). I only ran into a problem once and that was with Supreme Commander (it eats ridiculous memory and then crashes). Outside of that, I ran fine. That being said, I just upgraded my machine to Vista 64-bit with 8 gigs of RAM. Nothing like running Vista, with Windows XP and Solaris in VMWare sessions simultaneously on one machine.
I hated Vista Home for 6 months, but after I upgraded to 2.5 gigs ram total, it hasn't given me much grief. Part of the process is breaking it in (finding adequate drivers and programs), and the other part is getting the neccessary RAM and adequate CPU to run it. Heck, I don't even have Premium or Ultimate.... What I like about it is how stable hibernate and standby is compared to XP's version of it. It's very helpful for a laptop.
Ummm you know you can turn that off right? Just go to Run then MSCONFIG then go to the tools tab and select DISABLE UAC. Poof its gone forever!
Indeed. That was the very first thing I did when I turned on my Vista machine... I turned off User Account Control.
Nice, I knew there was something like this but I was too lazy to go find out. Thanks man. Now my vista is super ultimate
My computer runs it just fine with just over 2 gigs. It's pretty fast, though I still prefer XP. Maybe I got lucky or something.
Fixed the last problem I was getting with Vista. It runs as fast or faster now than on XP. It's just a pain in the butt to get all set up, and remove/add drivers. I may be able to try Aero out again, since it runs so smooth.
Vista user here. No problems on my laptop whatsoever. What many people fail to realize is that if they bought a built PC already, it was built for the OS that shipped or came with it. If you're trying to upgrade to Vista, you must also upgrade lots of hardware. It's silly to believe that your earlier car models will behave like the newer ones. No, it's not. It's not mandatory. Why say such silly thing? You can take off the customizations and visualizations if you want to process a RAM-eating application, yes, but don't forget that most applications won't use so much RAM.
I say that because it is such a nuisance to me. If I use someone else's Vista, I disable UAC before going any further.
I'm surprised people are having problems w/ Vista NOW. I haven't had any serious problems w/ it, the only drawback is needing more resources. If you don't have anything that requires Vista, I wouldn't upgrade though. Like someone else said, running IIS 7 is one of the few benefits I'm digging. My Windows laptop has 2gb of ram and a 1.8ghz dual core I believe. On one gb it was struggling, but 2 gb has made a huge difference. I also run Linux in VMWare and it still handles fine. Most slow down occurs for me when there is redrawing when I open new windows/folders (and I have aero shut off).
I've read articles online and the consensus is that upgrading from 2GB to 4GB or RAM is going to give you minmal increase in OS performance, and little to no increase in performance for gaming. I ordered a laptop that's supposed to arrive today running a t5750 core 2 duo at 2.0Ghz along with 2GB of memory. Very excited at the moment going to test it out possibly today probably tomorrow. Question for you is did you personally upgrade from 2GB to 4GB and see a performance increase or is what you said more of a hunch? I'm contemplating getting 2X2GB sticks but I want to know if the 45 bucks is worth it.