I recently viewed the homepage of Windows Vista on Microsoft's site. It says that Windows Vista can use a pen drive (USB 2.0) as additional RAM to speed up the memory.

My question is that we use RAM because the hard disk is SLOW. We do have a swap file, but we don't use it much because it slows down performance! So, how can it be that the USB Pen drive be as fast as the RAM? Its max. speed is just 153.3kbps So won't that be slow too? How can that act as additional RAM?

Is Microsoft trying to fool innocent buyers? This is outrageous!

-Omkar Ekbote

I think what Micro$oft is tring to tell is that Micro$oft Windows Vista can use USB 2.0 Pen Drives as a swap file (Page file). I am not sure that what I said is true. This is just a random guess.

If they are tring to fool innocent buyers then its no big thing as they have been doing it till now. Thats why people are switching from Windows to Linux (there are other reasons too).

pen drive speed is meassured in MBs not Kbs. Else even a floppy drive will have faster access than a pen drive. Pen drives usually read at 8mbps and rite at 6mbps.

Anyway, I guess all it will do is maybe use it as swap partition. Or who knows??? may be it actually turns it into a RAM? It will definitely perform better than a HD coz an HD is busy with loads of other work too which makes it act slow even with swap file. But Pen drive can be used for direct memory access.

There is not much report about all this on the popular sites either... so not much info.

Windows vista will never actually be released so no need to worry :|

Exactly! Microso$ft Windows Vista is been delayed a lot till now. So dont need to worry of using Microso$ft Windows Vista for another few more months, and who know if they feel like the may make it years before its final release (not really!)

whatever... people are crazily waiting for it though...

aah... the same old thing... why the f do people even give a damn to something as weird as harry potter???

what happened to the UNIXs of the Novel world

Another funny thought to note, Micorsoft is already thinking up ways to help us be able to run the new OS since so many comps won't be able to handle it hardware wise haha. They should just package it with upgrades for our pcs haha hrm :S

But yea they delayed it until next year and it probably won't be out at the current release date since recent reviews have said the OS is falling apart at the seams. Unless the recoding they are doing is majorly impressive I'm picturing a 2008 release stupid vista

Microsoft being Microsoft, even if they realize their software have problems, I think they would still release it. That's what patches are for, right?

Amongst other things, you'll notice from the Vista reviews, that it's expected to use up a lot of resources on rendering Hi-def graphics. In doing so, in the systems that most users are actually using now-a-days, it's concievable that there will be little RAM left over for running other non system applications. Result, most users will hae to dramaically upgrade their systems just to be able to upgrade to Vista.

One reason for the late release of visa is probably the fact that they are rying o correct this problem, since the inaility to fully uilize Vista will hae users sticking to XP or even the older versions (and I have friends who are still running Windows 98). this would really hurt Microsoft - should people not actually go out and buy the operating system.

Then again, Microsoft is also coming out with it's own hardware - which has already hit markets. The most easily available are the periphirals as of now. It's pretty likely that during the launch of vista, Microsoft may actually institute a scheme, where you're prompted to come by and try vista on similar systems that consumers are already using and then to try out Vista on an MS system. Then consumers may be prompted to swap their systems for a reduced cost - while also picking up the Vista software.

All in all - there's probably some trickery brewing.

Hmmm I can't really see how a pen drive could possibly act to give a system more ram? Would this even be remotely possible?

On the other hand as some of the other forum members have said it is probably far more likely that it simply acts as a swap file. This could still be good but it wouldn't allow for actual additional ram.

Of course I don't know any of this for sure but this is just what I am thinking, perhaps someone can set the record straight and tell us exactly how this thing works and if it can work at all?