For every report I see of someone having problems installing/running 7.0 under Vista, there is another that says "no problem." There may be some hardware interaction.
Another (free for now) alternative is Windows 7. I'm running the 64-bit version of Win7, and although I liked Vista (really, I did, even the much-maligned interface) I feel that Win7 has a *lot* of improvements. I would never consider loading a new machine with XP, but I will say that I do have VirtualPC/VirtualXP installed and I run one old app that way (VueScan) because it is the only way it can access my scanner.
If you plan on upgrading to CS4, you will at that point want a 64-bit OS, and a video card that CS4 can utilize. If you don't do gaming, consider a "workstation" card like nVidia's Quadro FX series. I use the 570, it can drive two dual link monitors at resolutions of up to 2560x1600 each (yeh, like I have room for two 30" monitors ;-)
Be careful in your choice of processors. If you plan on running Win7 and making use of the virtualization features (VirtualPC) then you need to make sure that your processor supports it. NOT all of Intel's newest processors do. The lower end of both the core2 duo and core2 quad do not (for instance you need at least the E8500 for virtualization with the core2 Duo chips). I don't know if they have done the same thing with i7, but I'd guess they have. The i7 chips are supposed to be very, very fast, but are still fetching a significant premium. |
