With Microsoft Windows Vista set to launch on Jan 30, Dell has already started taking orders, and shipping desktop and notebook PCs pre-loaded with Vista.

According to the company, Dell systems equipped with Vista are designed to deliver a rich digital lifestyle experience, combined with secure operations, and ease-of-use.

With this, customers can easily record and watch HD video, organize digital photo and music libraries, quickly search data and multimedia files, and browse the Internet with excellent protection from spyware and phishing scams.

Dell claims to have worked closely with Microsoft to make the computing experience faster, easier, and better in areas such as sales and technical support to make sure that customers purchase the right system to take full advantage of Vista.

Moreover, Dell claims to have spent more than 100,000 engineer-hours testing and validating Vista on its hardware. The company believes that there have been many technological advances since the last Windows upgrade more than five years ago.

To optimize the Windows Vista experience, Dell recommends that customers consider systems configured with dual-core or quad-core processors, more memory (2GB memory for optimal performance), a dedicated graphics card with 256 MB of memory or more, and large hard drives.

In addition, customers interested in knowing whether existing machines will run Windows Vista or not are advised by Dell to check the readiness advisor tool.

Initially, the roll-out of Vista-enabled Dell systems will be in English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. Additional languages will be made available in the coming weeks.