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Chapter 1

Installing Windows Vista Client

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor also provides a report that explains which edition of

Windows will best suit your needs given the configuration of the Windows XP computer on

which you ran it. For example, if the Upgrade Advisor detects that a computer is a member of

an Active Directory domain, it can discount Home Basic and Home Premium as viable options.

Neither edition supports domain membership.

Before you run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor you should connect all peripheral devices

(such as printers, external hard disk drives, and scanners) to the computer. This allows

Upgrade Advisor to take these peripherals into account when making a recommendation.

Practice: Evaluating a Computer Prior to Installing Windows Vista

In these practices, you will evaluate whether or not a computer is capable of running Windows

Vista. The first practice is an evaluation of the hardware requirements. The second practice

involves running the Upgrade Advisor.

Practice 1: Evaluate Computer Hardware Prior to Installing Windows Vista

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is limited in that it can run only on a subset of the oper-

ating systems that are actually available. You might be considering, for example, running

Windows Vista on a computer that has an operating system such as Linux installed. In this

case, you need to make your own evaluation of the computer’s hardware capacity.

1. Review the minimum and recommended hardware requirements of Windows Vista.

2. Enter the computer’s BIOS. When you power on a computer, it informs you which key

to press to enter setup or BIOS.

3. Use BIOS to determine how much RAM is installed on the computer, as shown in

Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2

Using BIOS to determine the amount of RAM a computer has

4. Use BIOS to determine the size of the hard disk drive installed in the computer.

5. Use BIOS to determine the processor speed of the computer.