I saw Susanne's post on Vista ready hardware over at http://www.uksmbgirl.co.uk/blog/archives/106 and decided it was worth chipping in a few thoughts of my own.  Many PCs will run Vista and while this has been discussed until people were blue in the face, much mis-information has also been published about it, so I thought I would give you the "David's unofficial guide to Hardware"

To start with Microsoft has published both minimums and recommended minimums for hardware, with the later being a 1GHz or above machine with 1GB of memory.  As has always been the case, power users may well require more.  I am writing this on a 2GHz laptop with 1GB of memory and I consider myself a power user (my index engine reports 91,941 documents indexed - so I consider myself a power user :-) )  Does my laptop sometimes run slow - yes, but it is due to that PowerUser status and not enough RAM.  My XP machine was a 3GHz Centrino with 2GB of RAM and I will upgrade the RAM on this at some time.  One other way I speed the machine up - turn off the Aero graphics to Aero Basic - this frees up some memory used by the video system.

So hardware - many reviews has said things like "x% of the PCs will require upgrades to get the full Vista experience" where "x" ranges from 40 to 99 depending on the reviewer and the amount of scientific work done to come up with the number.  The key word here is FULL.  If you don't want the graphics, then many more older desktops will work just fine.

In terms of drivers, I run machines at home that are anything up to 3-4 years old and range from 768MB of RAM up to 4GB. Nearly all the drivers shipped with the Vista DVDs or in the case of the sound driver for one of them, was downloaded automatically.  What can I say, run the upgrade Wizards and see for yourself.

Articles that discuss the upgrade process that you might be interested in are:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905088.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905090.aspx

For detailed "official" guidance on hardware, have a look at this

Microsoft provides enterprise customers with hardware guidance to run Windows Vista. By using these guidelines to procure PC system hardware, you should be able to deploy systems that will upgrade to Windows Vista. Check back here periodically for updates.

• Windows Vista enterprise hardware planning guidance
  The Windows Vista Capable PC and Windows Vista Premium Ready programs, along with the knowledge in this article, will allow you to purchase new hardware now and be confident that your enterprise has the right computers to make the transition to Windows Vista.
• Windows Vista hardware assessment
  Assess PCs network-wide with Windows Vista Hardware Assessment to determine the PCs’ readiness for Windows Vista upgrades, including hardware and device driver compatibility.
• Links to manufacturer information about CPU and graphics processor capabilities
  This page includes live links to key independent hardware vendor (IHV) Web sites with specific information on their products that support Windows Vista.
• Windows Vista hardware compatibility list
  A comprehensive list of hardware products that work with Windows Vista—from components to input devices, peripherals to mobile devices and everything in between.

To read more on deployment strategy and tools, go look at http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/75e0d9a9-368d-4b0f-8c0c-6ed3270742ea1033.mspx?mfr=true

ttfn

David