Can I upgrade my old laptop, which's not vista-capable, to vista, and if so, how do I go about it?

Answer 1

that depends on exactly how much 'not Vista capable' the thing is,

what you really need to run vista, as opposed to XP, is more memory, and a bigger Graphics card. a faster processor is nice, but not strictly necessary. by switching off the graphic gadgetry, you can save on the graphics card as well.

so, you probably dont need to change all that much, BUT upgrading laptops is always difficult and expensive, and in many cases impossible, because laptops are not designed to be upgraded, like PCs are... so it may be that your laptop cannot run more memory, or a faster processor, or a bigger graphics card. you will have to check your documention about upgrade possibilities. or ask your local dealer/technician about it.

Answer 2

I wouldn't do it. I have a beta version of Vista running in a test environment on a desktop machine that is well above minimum specs. The machine is an AMD Athalon 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB mem, and 128 MB Nvidia GeForce video card. Vista crashes all the time on me and currently there are very few drivers available for Vista. I had a heck of a time getting a driver for my ethernet card of all things.

STAY AWAY from Vista unless you just want to implement it in a test scenario.