Microsoft already disclosed some early system requirement details regarding Windows Vista. The first beta version of Windows Vista was released on Wednesday to more than 10,000 beta testers and the MSDN subscriber network.
Here are the estimated minimum system requirements for Windows Vista (previously codenamed Longhorn):
512MB memory or more
A dedicated graphics card with DirectX 9.0 support
A modern, Intel Pentium- or AMD Athlon-based PC.
However, the final system requirements will not be known until summer 2006 at earliest. Don't worry if your system doesn't meet the minimum system requirements, there's still plenty of time to update your system as Vista is only expected to arrive by late 2006.