>>>Well, I could... Though I'm afraid to try running Vista under MS VPC on my current computer, considering the results I get from the "Vista Upgrade Advisor" which stated that I'd meet the requirements as long as I replaced a *few* components -- essentially everything in the case (only suprise that I got was it didn't outright laugh at me for even trying). I've already seen what it's like with Win2K under MS VPC on my computer -- and it wasn't pretty.
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>>I see workstations priced around $399. that come installed with Vista.
>Sure seems the simplest/cheapest "solution" to me.
>
>Looking over the specs of most of these low-priced machines (notably the RAM), they'll probably be OK with WinXP but annoyingly slow in Vista (though perhaps not as slow as my current computer would be running Vista). I did have an opportunity to open up one or two of these low-priced computers and noted that upgrading memory typically means discarding the existing memory modules and replacing with larger-capacity ones (either there's only one slot or all existing slots are filled).
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>On the upside of this however, without upgrading these low-cost boxes, they'll be so annoyingly slow, nobody will want to use them! That way I *can* dedicate them for testing-only purposes.... Hmm... you might have a point there...
>
>Of course, IIRC some of the display quirks was related to the Aero desktop wasn't it? The lower-priced Vista boxes are usually limited to Vista Basic which lacks the Aero desktop...

I have done some testing, and I incite on testing a machine that only at the lowest end of the software specs. If any thing appears wrong (bugs, speed, crashes) they generally appear then. As a rule, companies give the developers the latest and greatest machines for developing. They then develop the software for comfort of their machine. But in reality, the clients can not always afford those kind of machines. My advise is to find the low end machine to use as a test machine. If the tester complains about the softwares speed, then problem is in the code. IMO :)