I installed Vista RC2 when it was first released and have been struggling with performance using a Dell 9300 with1GB RAM, 7200 HDD, 2Ghz M cpu, 6800go GPU. Today my new RAM arrived from AusPCMarket – 2 sticks of Corsair DDR2 1GB. What a difference it has made. Now can say from experince get at least 2GB RAM for Vista!
Using the built in memory gadget I was using between 56% (nothing) and 90%+ (debuging). I’m now at 27% (nothing) and 60% (debugging). Clearly my performance issues were related to running out of RAM and having to use slow disk.
As a side note the upgrade, although it has changed my system from painful to useful, had no impact on my Vista performace score for memory of 4.4.