Hardware Requirements and Compatibility

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Hardware Requirements and Compatibility

Make sure that your hardware is compatible with Windows Vista, and that all the computers on which you plan to install the operating system are capable of supporting the installation. The basic hardware requirements for Windows Vista are listed in the following table.

Windows Vista Capable PC logo Windows Vista Premium Ready

Modern processor, 800 MHz or faster

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

512 MB memory

1 GB memory

DirectX 9 Capable (WDDM driver support recommended) video adapter

Windows Aero capable video adapter:

  • DirectX 9-class GPU that supports:
    • A WDDM driver
    • Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
    • 32 bits per pixel
  • Adequate graphics memory

 

128 MB graphics memory

 

40 GB disk space

 

15 GB free hard disk space

 

DVD-ROM optical drive

Meets criteria for "Designed for Windows XP" or"Designed for Windows XP x64" logo

 

For more information about the hardware requirements for installing Windows Vista, see the Hardware Guidance information provided on the Microsoft Web site.

For more information about the hardware requirements for installing Windows Vista, see the Hardware Compatibility List link on the Web Resources page on the Microsoft Web site.

Note

Windows Vista supports single and dual central processing unit (CPU) systems and supports AMD and Intel x64 processors.