Much has already been written about Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next-generation operating system that is due to be released to volume customers later this month, barring any last-minute bugs that might cause further delays.

Many writers have complained about Vista’s seemingly steep system requirements, and some have predicted that a high proportion of users will have to upgrade to a new PC to get a satisfactory experience from the new platform. But is this really the case?

Admittedly, Windows Vista has higher system requirements than Windows XP, needing “a modern processor (at least 800MHz), 512MB of system memory, and a graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable”, according to Microsoft. However, these specifications should be met or exceeded by any PC that was bought as new within the last three years or so.

Those are just the minimum requirements, of course, and a higher specification is needed to access the Premium features of Vista, such as the Aero user interface. For this, you need a 1GHz or better processor, 1GB of memory and a graphics adapter compatible with Microsoft’s new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) and capable of 32bit colour.

But even these requirements do not seem steep compared with many current systems. I typed up this column on a 3GHz Pentium 4 system with 1GB of memory, for example, and it was not exactly the last word in performance when it was rolled out.

In reality, every version of Windows has called for beefier hardware than the previous one. If Vista’s needs seem a long hop from those of Windows XP, you should remember that it is now half a decade since XP shipped. Back then, the fastest PCs ran at 2GHz and only power users needed more than 256MB of memory.

A certain amount of disinformation seems to have been spread regarding Vista’s Aero user interface, particularly the rumour that it will require a costly high-performance 3D graphics adapter, such as those produced by Nvidia and ATI for games players. This is not true. Having run many of the pre-release versions of Vista, I can attest that the Aero features work just fine with Intel’s embedded graphics functions, such as those in the Q965 chipset now finding its way into dual-core corporate desktops.

As is often the case, the devil is in the detail. Vista generates its own performance rating – the Windows Experience Index – for the computer’s processor, memory, graphics and disk subsystems. The overall rating is set by the lowest score, and a PC must earn a rating of 3.0 or above to let the user switch Aero on. This means that every subsystem must rate higher than 3.0, so you could be penalised for a slow hard disk or not having enough memory.

However, IT departments should not get too hung up about Aero. It is not vastly different from the standard Vista user interface, just snazzier looking, with its transparency and other visual effects such as animations. An end-user trained on the standard Vista user interface will have no difficulty using Aero, and vice versa.