Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system
was introduced on January the 30th of 2007.
It was effectively an upgrade to Windows XP.
And it was released about five years after Windows XP
was introduced.
Windows Vista introduced a new graphical user interface.
There was a new graphical design called Aero.
And they also integrated a new search component directly
into the operating system, making it easier
for you to find the documents and the applications you
were looking for.
There was a big emphasis on security in Windows Vista.
And part of this emphasis caused a problem for many people
as they were getting prompts from something called the User
Account Control.
This new UAC stopped the operating system
from doing anything on the desktop
and brought up a prompt on the screen for the user
to authorize.
Some people felt that this was more of a hindrance to the user
interface than something that was helping them with security.
If you're using Windows Vista at home
there are probably three different editions
that you might find.
One of these is Windows Vista Home Basic.
This has, as the name implies, a basic configuration
of the operating system.
There's no fancy Aero graphics and you
don't have any capability to connect
any type of business network.
Another edition might be the Windows Vista Home Premium.
This added the ability to burn your own DVDs,
there were more games included with this version.
And the ultimate version at home is the Windows Vista Ultimate.
This is something that included video as a background,
something Microsoft calls DreamScene,
there's BitLocker encryption included with Windows Vista
Ultimate.
And if you're using other languages
you can plug those in as language packs in the operating
system.
If you have Windows Vista at work
there are probably two different editions
that you might be using.
One is Windows Vista Business.
This is what you would think of as the professional version
of Windows Vista.
It supports Active Directory infrastructure,
there are encrypting file systems
so you can encrypt individual files on your computer,
remote desktop servers available so
that you can remote desktop into your business computer,
and you can support up to two physical CPUs
when you're running Windows Vista Business.
If you're an organization that takes advantage
of the special volume licensing through Microsoft,
you might be running Windows Vista Enterprise.
This not only includes all of those other features,
but also includes BitLocker encryption
for full disk encryption.
And you also have the ability to change out the user language
packs in the operating system, as well.
There are two different set of hardware requirements
for Windows Vista.
One for Windows Vista Home Basic, and then one
for all of the other additions of Windows Vista.
Windows Vista Home Basic requires an 800 megahertz
processor, 512 megabytes of memory,
you need at least a 20 gigabyte hard drive
with 15 gigabytes of free hard drive space,
it requires a DVD-ROM drive, and 32 megabytes of graphics
RAM in your video adapter.
The other editions of Windows Vista, this
includes Home Premium, Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise
have a little bit higher of a hardware requirement.
For example, you need a 1 gigahertz processor
to be able to install those additions,
you need one gigabyte of RAM inside of your system,
a 40 gigabit hard drive with 15 gigabytes
free, you still need that DVD-ROM drive,
but the increased graphics capabilities
require that your graphics card have
at least 128 megabytes of RAM.
Here's a summary of just some of the features
that you might find in these different editions of Windows
Vista.
You can see the Home Basic version doesn't support
very much, is limited to 4 gigabytes of RAM on an x86,
or a 32-bit system.
And on a 64-bit system you can use a maximum
of 8 gigabytes of memory.
For Home Premium you at least have the Aero graphics
and the Media Center capabilities,
but you don't have any of the more advanced capabilities
that you might need in a business.
And you can see the amount of total maximum memory
available on a 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home
Premium is 16 gigabytes.
When you get into a business in Enterprise or in Ultimate,
you can see the capabilities are greatly improved,
the number of features available in those versions,
and you can see that increases the amount of 64-bit operating
system memory up to 128 gigabytes per system.