Vista RC1 & installing Windows Vista Beta 2

I was actually going to publish this some time ago to point to for people who were asking me whether they should try Vista Beta 2. Well, OK this is a bit late since Vista has now gone to RC1, but even so. It seems like everyone wants to be a beta tester these days! I for one don't, not really, but I can't resist playing with the new technology...

So you've got a spare PC lying around and are wondering if you should play with Vista? First you're not sure if your PC makes the cut in terms of hardware. Well the good news is that there's the Microsoft Vista (Beta) Upgrade Advisor (Beta) :-), which is (now an RC, or release candidate, which means that the folks at Microsoft think it's ready to be shipped) at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx .

The upshot is this: to get the nice glass-like interface - Aero - which is really a major upside, since one of the nicest things is how 'pretty' a lot of things are in Vista, you need (according to Microsoft):

• a 1GHz CPU (I would definitely recommend something quite a bit quicker, unless Vista is just your way of taking short breaks from the book you're reading)
• 1GB memory (that's more like it)
• An AGP capable of DirectX 9, 32 bits per pixel and pixel shader 2.0 in hardware and 128 MB of graphics memory
• 40GB hard disk with 15Gb free
• DVD ROM drive

I would also recommend a broadband connection, and I have read that it's part of the requirements for some of the editions (?).

I'm writing this on a Vista system which is a 1.7GHz Pentium 4, with 1GB of memory (upped from the 128MB this system had before! - cost about £50 since it's old memory), has a new 256MB AGP (nVidia GeForce FX5200 - cost about £30), 40GB HDD - wiped clean for Vista, and yes it's got a DVD drive & yes it's on my home network, so it's got broadband access. And yes, I'm running Vista Ultimate, with the Aero interface and it's all quite pretty indeed. But anything slower than this, and I wouldn't be able to use it, so be warned. Mind you, if you're quite used to dealing with slowish systems, then this spec should be pretty much all you need.

Anyway, the question really was.. "Should I install Vista" and "Is it complicated?". The answers:

If you want to play with it, install away. As long as I don't end up providing tech support! As with any Beta, don't install it on a production computer, or your main computer that you NEED to work. Having said that, I find Beta 2 pretty stable and would happily stick it on my main (home) computer, except that it breaks a couple of the applications I use, especially my VPN client, without which I am lost!

Is it complicated? Actually, no it isn't. I forgot to make notes as I was doing both my installs, so I jotted these notes down just after, so I should be about right - this is the Vista install process:

• Download Vista Beta 2 & burn the image to DVD (or order the disc)
• Boot off the Vista DVD (I had quite a problem with this step for some reason, and I eventually managed to get around it by using a PS2 keyboard instead of my USB one - I have had no issues booting off a number of other DVDs using my USB keyboard, most recently including Fedora Core 5. For some reason, with the Vista disc, when I tried to press a key to boot off the disc, the USB keyboard would not respond until it passed that stage, by which time it was too late. I haven't established if this is an issue relating to the machine I was using or something else, but it went fine with a PS2 keyboard anyway)
• Vista Setup will load some files and present you with a screen where you click "Install Now" - why else would I be booting off this disc? :-)
• You then choose your input locale - i.e. your language & keyboard layout - pretty simple so far huh?
• You then enter your Vista serial key (and this is a nicer way of doing things since it fills in dashes etc & doesn't have separate boxes!)
• Choose whether you want to upgrade your existing OS or do a clean install - I chose the latter, since this HDD was wiped recently anyway after a long linux experiment that ended in all sorts of OS instability
• I chose the Advanced option, which allows you to choose to repartition the drive and choose which partition to install on. I partitioned my 40GB drive into 2 20GB partitions and installed there
• You can also load drivers for your disks / arrays at this stage if necessary
• That's about it! Vista install then begins - copying files, expanding files & then installing features and updates
• The rest of the post-install procedure is fairly simple, with configuration wizards for various things like:
• Country or Region, and Keyboard Layout
• Choose a Username and Picture (optional password)
• Choose a computer name and choose a Desktop background (very important to choose a nice Vista :-))
• Help protect Windows automatically (Automatic Updates)
• System time and date settings

After this stage, you should get the You're ready to start prompt, and ohmygod what's this? It's done!