How much space does Windows need?

[Dorota]

Hi,

I'm partitioning a new drive and wonder what the best size would be for the
partition that will hold Windows Vista and all my other applications. Any
ideas please?

[johnson22]

A Vista installation can easily expand to 20gbs. Only you can estimate what you need for programs. A minimum 60gbs seems about right for a Vista installation. The Vista drive needs room for a paging file as well (Microsoft recommends this be on the same drive as the OS). Clearly this represents an astounding amount of operating system bloat. I use Vista on some computers but would not recommend anyone use it who does not have to do so--meaning it was foisted on them preinstalled on a consumer box. The 64 bit version should be avoided more than the 32 bit for ordinary users, although the 64 bit version now comes loaded on low end laptops at places like Costco (I would love to know how many of these are returned to the seller!). No one should "upgrade" a stable XP installation to Vista--install Vista in a dual boot set-up and migrate to it if you decide you like it.

Vista is much slower than XP across the board both in disc access and because of useless crud like the UAC which does nothing real for security except ask you endlessly if you really want to do what you just told the OS to do. One excuse given for Vista's slow disc access and file transfers is that Vista does not tell the user the file operation is complete until it has been verified whereas XP releases the OS for use before verification. Even if true the end result is that XP performs the same operation faster from the user's experience. Vista Networking is horrible with multiple arcane and undocumented sub-menus required to set permissions for ordinary file sharing if you use anything except the "public" folder, a concept that works for no one with any real need to network computers for real life business applications. There is a reason why Intel, the Federal government and the majority of businesses refuse to use Vista. These include ridiculous hardware requirements to run the OS but which are over-kill for business applications but also the problematic networking built into Vista. Many custom business programs, which use specific data base servers, are not compatible with Vista but are perfectly serviceable--how Microsoft could have neglected that issue is inexplicable. Microsoft finally gets it and can not get Windows 7 out the door fast enough.

[deoWo]

Why worry with Vista when it is substandard compared with previous Windows versions? Legacy software and hardware may well nowork with Vista.

If you must have it for some reason, dual boot.