EDCO Computer systems

Initial installation

June 18, 2006 on 8:09 pm | In Set up and installation, Drivers, Windows Vista Beta |

 

Initial installation

Microsoft has two minimum specification for a computer to run Windows Vista. The first is a PC capable of running Vista and the second is a computer that is considered Vista Premium Ready.

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:  A CPU running at least 800MHz 512 MB of system memory A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes: 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor. 1 GB of system memory. A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero, 128 MB of graphics memory. 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space. DVD-ROM Drive. Audio output capability. Internet access capability

Our plan is to install the operating systems on several different hardware arrangements during the BETA. For the first installation the following  hardware set up was used:

Main Board	Asus A7N8X2
CPU	AMD Athlon XP  1.85 gigahertz,  128 kilobyte primary memory cache, 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Memory	1024 Megabytes
Video	ATI RADEON 9600
Disk Storage	120 GB Maxtor Drive
Optical	DVD RW
Power supply	500 Watts
LAN	10/100 On Board
Sound	On Board

The installation went very smooth. We started with a clean Drive and formatted it during the installation. Very few inputs were needed from us during the installation and it completed successfully included several reboots. Most of the drivers were loaded correctly during the install. Vista has a handy feature that prompts you when drivers are not functioning and makes an attempt at automatically repairing the problem including a search of the internet, which I assume looks to the Windows update data base. In the case of my sound driver Vista was not able to repair or install the driver automatically so it prompted for a driver disk from the device. I used the original driver CD from the ASUS main board. During the installation Vista not able to automatically search the CD for driver and I had to point it to the specific folder. I used the XP drivers and they worked fine. One other driver was also not loaded correctly but I am unable to find which device this is for and all the hardware seems to run correctly.