Do you have at home a computer which has inside it state-of-the-art components? Do you have a humongous amount of memory, at least 1GB? And, on top of it, do you have an Internet connection which allows you to download about 3.5-4.4 GB?

If all of the above conditions are satisfied, you can go ahead and download the first public test version of Windows Vista.

After months of limited testing, Microsoft yesterday announced the public availability of the Beta 2.

The Redmond company warns that this is still a beta and that it should only be used by developers and enthusiasts who are not bothered by one, two, or more bugs.

The public version of Beta 2 is available in three languages, English, German and Japanese, and can be downloaded for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Once registered in the Customer Preview Program, you will also have access to the Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1), the next major pre-release of Windows Vista, when it is available later this year.

If you don't have enough patience or enough bandwidth for the 3.3GB (the size of the 32-bit edition) or the 4.4GB (for the 64-bit edition), then you can order a DVD with the Beta 2, for which you have to pay a small fee.

Windows Vista Beta 2 is available on Softpedia here.