running vista on an imac

[CQuedado]

how well does vista run on the imac.

its specs are:

2.4 ghz
1gig ram (but will prolly upgrade to 2 gigs shortly)

i was wondering how much ram you recommend and/or any tips you might want to give me before i install it in on my fairly new imac (so as not to destroy it)

literally any information you have on it would be of huge help. thanks

 

[SaSaSushi]

The amount of RAM you need depends more on how you plan to run Vista. For example, if you intend to run it in Boot Camp then 1GB should be enough even though 2GB is optimal. If, however, you intend to run Vista in a VM like Parallels or VMware Fusion I would strongly advise you to get 4GB.

I have a 2.4GHz C2D iMac and I mostly run Vista (Boot Camp) via Fusion. I have 4GB total (2GB alloted to Fusion) and it runs both Leopard and Vista smoothly. When I only had 2GB total system RAM it ran like molasses and was close to unusable locking up both OSes at times.

As for the 2.4GHz iMac being up to the task of Vista, absolutely it is.

 

[CQuedado]

do you think it would be wiser to use xp instead of vista (seeing as vista has had a lot of bugs)

if you think i should use xp, which version should i use (sp 1/2/3)

 

[madog]

do you think it would be wiser to use xp instead of vista (seeing as vista has had a lot of bugs)

if you think i should use xp, which version should i use (sp 1/2/3)

At this point, Vista isn't so much riddled with bugs as much as it is simply confusing to use when used to XP. All the previous drivers issues and such have pretty much been resolved since as well.

However, while Vista would run fine on your machine in Bootcamp as is, if you plan on running games or anything I would highly recommend upgrading. The same would go for XP in Bootcamp, although the OS itself would run much smoother as it has much lower hardware requirements than Vista.

It pretty much depends on what you'll be doing. If you need it just for the sake of having Windows for an occasional app or few, than either will be fine. If you want to play games or anything intense like that then XP would be a much smoother and faster experience. Also, if you want to run a Virtual Machine through VM/Parallels then XP would run better as well.

For XP, you must have at least SP2 to install via Bootcamp, and it can be upgraded freely through the Windows Update program to SP3.