Vista & Office 2007

After reading numerous articles about it and discussing it with other tech people, the time has finally arrived for installing an MS Windows Vista beta. Just for the heck of it, the Microsoft Office 2007 beta will also be installed on the Vista machine.

The Vista and MS Office 2007 betas arrived today in the MS Action Pack quarterly update. Luke had gotten a copy of the Vista beta from Andy M at NEW NET but had not yet installed it. When the Action Pack arrived, it seemed like a sign that the Vista and Office betas should be installed. Luke is installing the 64-bit Vista tonight and will do the x86 Vista install tomorrow at NEW NET in case anyone is interested in seeing what the install is like.

Before starting the install Luke needed evening sustenance. Min du Buffet in Appleton is an Asian restaurant he had not previously tried, so the car was pointed toward Wisconsin Avenue to check out their dinner buffet. Although it had fewer choices than many Asian buffets in the area, Luke highly enjoyed his delicious meal and plans to visit them in the future.

During his Chinese supper various options were discussed for building or buying a Vista demo/gaming computer. Based on Luke's general recommendations for computer components, it was decided the Vista/gaming system would cost around $800 to build. The system specs include a 3800+ or better Athlon processor, two 512 MB sticks of matched RAM, a 256 MB 7600GT nVidia or X850XT ATI graphics card, a 300 GB HD and a DVD burner. The case would be either a mini-ATX or an ATX, depending on whether a good mini-ATX motherboard could be located at a reasonable price. But if the case is ATX (midtower?), it should have an integral handle for easy transporting to clients' homes for demos or to LAN parties or other gaming situations. Not sure if a 939 or AM2 socket is best, although AM2 seems to be leading in the polls.

The purpose of a new system is to have a good system for showing Vista Aero demos and for gaming. The Vista release is getting close enough (May 2007) that some myDigitechnician clients have started asking questions about Vista. For the type of service myDigitechnician strives to provide its clients, it will be valuable to be able to demo Vista Aero so they can make informed decisions about how quickly they upgrade to Vista and what hardware they should buy over the next six to twelve months. For gaming, especially with respect to the Black Ops Division, it would be good to have a more portable, more modern system. The new system will certainly not be cutting edge, but it will be an excellent system for today's games.

MS Office 2007 isn't of high interest to most myDigitechnician clients, but it is being put on with Vista to have an application to run, as well as to see some of the Office 2007 features being discussed online these days.

If you have Vista questions or suggestions, feel free to comment here or contact me.

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