Which Vista Edition is Right for Me? (Basic/Premium/Business/Ultimate)


Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Business x64 Retail for me. I don't want the bloat that is Movie Maker, Parental Controls, Media Center, etc and want the ability to get extended support and up to 128GB+ of ram so it was an easy decision.

  • 4 weeks later...
Business x64 Retail for me. I don't want the bloat that is Movie Maker, Parental Controls, Media Center, etc and want the ability to get extended support and up to 128GB+ of ram so it was an easy decision.

Yet you're running with just 2GB, only 126GB to go :p j/k

  • 3 weeks later...

here are some things i've noticed since vista's release:

vista home basic seems to be good enough for an entry-level/family desktop as it provides parental controls.

all the premium versions of vista are best suited for notebooks but there are 3:

home premium is the one for a laptop being used for personal entertainment (includes win media centre).

business is of course aimed at the sme market and if you want to improve work efficiency (win meeting space, auto backups).

and then ultimate is all of that and then some (bitlocker, extras, auto backups, etc).

i currently have vista business preinstalled on my hp compaq so all my business needs are taken care of although i'm not all work & no play so i might purchase an upgrade for ultimate as soon as the better priced sp1 versions arrive.

  • 2 weeks later...
I use ultimate as it can use deskscapes but what is that stuff with all versions on the same disk? - Wouldnt that take to much size or something?

Nah... Basically the install DVD has Ultimate on it, but the installer only copies and enables the parts that your product key indicates you paid for. 99.5% of the components for the Vista editions are identical. :)

  • 3 weeks later...

♠I use ultimate, because i got a retail version as a gift (from someone who can get them at huge discount)

otherwise i'd never pay $300 for it. its retarded (not to mention the msrp of 400)

  • 1 month later...

In order to discover which Vista version is the best for your user profile, you should download Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool from microsoft.com/downloads/ and run a scan with it. It will give you at the end the results saying if you have any program not compatible with Vista or hardware driver and it will show also a table with all the version of Vista and the version that will suit the best for you.

  • 1 month later...

Although my computer originally shipped with Home Premium, I got my hands on a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and have never looked back. Not only does it come with all the features, but you never get nagged by Vista stating you have to upgrade AND you also get a copy of the 64-bit edition. (Which is awesome and handy)

Although my computer originally shipped with Home Premium, I got my hands on a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and have never looked back. Not only does it come with all the features, but you never get nagged by Vista stating you have to upgrade AND you also get a copy of the 64-bit edition. (Which is awesome and handy)

When does Vista nag you to upgrade? I'm running Business and the only place I see is on the computer properties screen with the upgrade Vista link.

  • 1 month later...
Although my computer originally shipped with Home Premium, I got my hands on a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and have never looked back. Not only does it come with all the features, but you never get nagged by Vista stating you have to upgrade AND you also get a copy of the 64-bit edition. (Which is awesome and handy)

I have home premium and I have NEVER seen it even ask me to upgrade ever.

  • 4 weeks later...
Looks like most people are in the same boat, trying to decide between Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Business. About a 60 dollar difference in price. One turnoff with the Home basic is its compared to Windows Media Center (ew.) Never did like that OS>

Business says " dual processor (two sockets) support," I guess the Home basic doesn't take into account Dual Core processors?

Two sockets mean that you have two separate processors, just to iron that out. THe other editions don't handle two separate processors correctly apparently.

Dual core is just one processor split in half, thus creating, two cores ;)

  • 3 weeks later...

Only bother with Home Premium, Business or Ultimate. I use Business and Ultimate on all my computers. Home Premium is nice, but there are plenty of alternative media players, and I'd much rather have Remote Desktop.

Home Premium beats Ultimate overall. Ultimate only has a few extra features which are usually pointless in corporartions; which is where Vista Business comes in. IMO, Home Premium is the cheaper and fulfilling alternative to Ultimate.

I've used Ultimate, and it seems to be slower on my computer. Not to mention boot-time is about 2 seconds longer due to the Vista Boot Loader? (Premium doesn't have this) Ultimate also has useless features like BitLocker; a flash drive-based key used to unlock your computer's hard drive for use.

Ultimate costs about $100 more than Premium, yet it only comes with 2-3 newer features... Ultimate IS the AIO version of Vista, which is somewhat useless when you can have most features from Premium or Business alone. If you need both Premium and Business at once, then Ultimate is your only choice.

I'd probably replied here before... but I would anything anything BUT basic. HomeP/Business/Ultimate are pretty much the same. Business has the nobody-uses-them so-called business tools, and homeP has windows media center (and also mpeg-2 codecs). Ultimate has both those things.

Anyway, HomeP is probably the best choice.

Home Premium beats Ultimate overall. Ultimate only has a few extra features which are usually pointless in corporartions; which is where Vista Business comes in. IMO, Home Premium is the cheaper and fulfilling alternative to Ultimate.

I've used Ultimate, and it seems to be slower on my computer. Not to mention boot-time is about 2 seconds longer due to the Vista Boot Loader? (Premium doesn't have this) Ultimate also has useless features like BitLocker; a flash drive-based key used to unlock your computer's hard drive for use.

Ultimate costs about $100 more than Premium, yet it only comes with 2-3 newer features... Ultimate IS the AIO version of Vista, which is somewhat useless when you can have most features from Premium or Business alone. If you need both Premium and Business at once, then Ultimate is your only choice.

care to elaborate about the vista bootleader? and ultimate shouldn't be slower anyway

  • 2 months later...
I had bought a new laptop in February (trade-in deal at CompUSA) which had Vista Home Premium on it. Since it didn't have Remote Desktop in it (I could remote from it to another of my PCs, but not to it), I looked at the upgrade to Ultimate. club.live.com came along, and for a while had Ultimate available if you played the brain games and accumulated 6,000 points. Got there and placed the order. Received Ultimate last week and installed it onto the laptop.

Right after I ordered it, I told a co-worker or two about it. One of them tried to do the same, but when she got to 6,000 and tried to order it, the site changed -- option to get Ultimate was gone, and replaced with Home Premium for 20,000 points. She's a bit upset at that. :)

-Ed S

Cant you use other programs to do Remote Desktop?

With Vista ultimate can you have both 32bit and 64bit versions on the same machine from the same install? i.e one account being 32bit and another 64bit.

I'm guessing/assuming that you have to have 2 separate installs but if so can you do it with the same licence?

No, you have to have 2 separate licenses, and 2 separate disks (one 32bit and one 64bit).

I prefer the XP Professional version myself.

So do many of my customers and friends :)

If I had to pick a Vista version, ultimate would probably have to do :p

Haha same here... I prefer Windows XP Professional... but I got use to Vista now.

The only thing I like about Vista honestly is the taskbar preview function and new Alt-Tab, and Aero Glass.

Now if I could have that in XP.... atleast the preview.......

Home Premium beats Ultimate overall. Ultimate only has a few extra features which are usually pointless in corporartions; which is where Vista Business comes in. IMO, Home Premium is the cheaper and fulfilling alternative to Ultimate.

I've used Ultimate, and it seems to be slower on my computer. Not to mention boot-time is about 2 seconds longer due to the Vista Boot Loader? (Premium doesn't have this) Ultimate also has useless features like BitLocker; a flash drive-based key used to unlock your computer's hard drive for use.

Ultimate costs about $100 more than Premium, yet it only comes with 2-3 newer features... Ultimate IS the AIO version of Vista, which is somewhat useless when you can have most features from Premium or Business alone. If you need both Premium and Business at once, then Ultimate is your only choice.

I agree with you Skilltrail... Ultimate costs alot more and only has a few more features that some of us wont use, or can use using other programs. (or am I just speaking for myself).

I use Vista Home Premium (came with my computer) and I'm fine with it.

I'm not sure if I would benefit with Vista Ultimate.

Edited by mujjuman

I upgraded last night to Ultimate because it was only $65 with my student discount. NOT worth it. The only thing that could really be useful (to me) is the shadow copies. Plus it took forever, when I have heard of clean installs being done in half an hour.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I'm still on Windows 10 22H2 because I didn't want to deal with all the issues in Windows 11, so I waited almost a week before installing the latest Patch Tuesday update (KB5094127), I went ahead and did it, and it was a huge mistake—ever since then, my File Explorer has seen a performance drop of about 30% when transferring large files... Once again, Microsoft has outdone itself! This update cannot be uninstalled, either through the Control Panel (via Settings) or by accessing Advanced Startup Options. The only possible alternative would be to use system restore points, but I’d have to reinstall all app and driver updates (and there’s no guarantee it would work). Or there’s the “nuclear option” of a in-place repair without losing files or apps, but even then, all my customizations would be lost! Microsoft just can’t help but mess everything up! Way to go, Microsoft! But I still don’t want your c****y Windows 11!
    • Microsoft: Windows 11 could finally solve a major issue across AMD, Nvidia, and Intel GPUs by Sayan Sen While Microsoft has been trying to improve it, Windows 11 is definitely not flawless, as even today some issues are taking a year to publicly acknowledge. However, one area of trouble that may finally see much better results soon is graphics driver crashes. Work on graphics driver timeouts, also called Timeout and Detection Recovery (TDR), is not new as the latest WDDM 3.2 also has specific improvements regarding it. Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) version 3.2 is supported on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. However, with the upcoming version 26H2, TDR crash diagnosis could go to the next level as Microsoft is introducing a new DirectX 12 API feature called "DirectX Dump Files". Similar to how system memory dump files work when a system crashes or freezes or encounters any such major issue, DirectX Dump Files (DDF) will essentially record a snapshot of the GPU execution right at the moment a graphics-related crash or hang or freeze occurs, so that developers can better understand and diagnoze these TDR and timeout detection errors. The dump will be available as a .dxdmp file for analysis and it will be a comprehensive dump file generated with detailed insights about the hardware, drivers, Windows, as well as the affected application. This should be another welcome change in this department. Earlier at GDC 2026, when the technology was first debuted, Microsoft had shared more details regarding it. The company had explained how DDF is designed to gather data from every layer of the graphics stack into a single file, eliminating the need for developers to manually correlate logs from multiple tools. As mentioned above, the dump can contain a lot of useful details like GPU hardware state information such as register values, shader program counters, page fault virtual addresses, shader memory data, and command buffers. Alongside that, it also captures DirectX runtime and kernel information, including D3D objects, pipeline state objects, device error data, adapter details, and CPU call stacks. Microsoft says the feature has been built around two primary use cases: retail device removals and local device removals. The former allows developers to collect crash information from end users' systems in the field, while the latter helps QA teams and developers investigate issues on test machines. Developers will also be able to include up to 2 MB of custom application data through new D3D12 APIs, providing additional context for troubleshooting. In addition, Microsoft is introducing three dump collection modes ranging from zero-overhead capture, which has no runtime performance impact on supported hardware, to higher-detail modes that collect more vendor-specific debugging data. On compatible Tier 2 hardware, zero-overhead dumps will be enabled by default, meaning developers may begin receiving useful crash diagnostics without making any code changes. The table below explains the three tiers: Tier Description NO_OVERHEAD Enables crash capture with no runtime cost and is suitable for broad deployment MEDIUM_OVERHEAD Provides a balance, capturing additional diagnostic data with moderate impact HIGH_OVERHEAD Collects the most detailed GPU and driver state available, enabling deeper investigation at the cost of higher runtime overhead In terms of availability, the company expects broader release to be around the fall of 2026, which should be right around the time when Windows 11 version 26H2 lands. Right now, DirectX Dump Files are available as a preview and currently, only AMD has the compatible AgilitySDK Developer Preview driver version 26.10.07.02. You can find the official announcement post here on Microsoft's website.
    • And with SO much better perf than the laggy mess that is Files.
    • BrowserOS 0.46.0 by Razvan Serea BrowserOS is a free, open-source Chromium-based browser that runs AI agents natively, offering a smarter, more productive browsing experience. It supports Chrome extensions and integrates AI agents to automate tasks, fill forms, and streamline workflows. Your data stays on your computer: you can use your own API keys or run local models via Ollama, making it a privacy-first alternative to tools like Perplexity, Comet, or Dia. With built-in productivity tools and app integrations, BrowserOS boosts efficiency while keeping control firmly in your hands. Being Chromium-based, BrowserOS lets you effortlessly import your bookmarks, passwords, and Chrome extensions in just a few clicks. BrowserOS works with OpenAI GPT models, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, and local AI models via Ollama or LMStudio. You can use your own API keys and effortlessly switch between providers. BrowserOS Agent Your AI productivity assistant that organizes and manages your browsing effortlessly Quickly list, group, or close tabs Save and resume browsing sessions Search your history and organize bookmarks Switch instantly to the tab you need BrowserOS Navigator – Automate web tasks with ease Navigate websites and search automatically Interact with pages without manual effort Handle repetitive tasks in seconds What makes BrowserOS special Feels like home - same familiar interface as Google Chrome, works with all your extensions AI agents that run on YOUR browser, not in the cloud Privacy first - bring your own keys or use local models with Ollama. Your browsing history stays on your computer Open source and community driven - see exactly what's happening under the hood MCP store to one-click install popular MCPs and use them directly in the browser bar (coming soon) Built-in AI ad blocker that works across more scenarios! BrowserOS 0.46.0 changelog: Run Claude Code & Codex right in your browser — We've extended the agent harness to bring full coding agents into BrowserOS. Claude Code and Codex now come bundled and plug straight into the assistant, so you can drive your browser with the agent — and the subscription — you already use. A brand new experience — A redesigned new tab, a calmer composer, and a rebuilt command center for switching between agents. The whole assistant is cleaner, faster to reach, and easier to live in. New MCP tools — We rebuilt the browser tool surface from the ground up — a tighter, more reliable set of tools for agents to drive the browser. Plus one-click install of BrowserOS as an MCP server into the agents you already run, with automatic URL sync. Chromium 148 — Updated to the latest Chromium base with all recent upstream fixes and security patches. Streamlined — We've pulled back a few features that weren't getting much use — Skills, Soul, and Memory — so we can focus and ship better versions of them soon. Download: BrowserOS 0.46.0 | 181.0 MB (Open Source) Download: BrowserOS for macOS | 485.0 MB Links: BrowserOS Homepage | Github | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Jordan Smith earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      BizSAR earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • First Post
      AndreaB earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      Huge Trailer earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      Classifyskilleducation earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      594
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      187
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      79
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      74
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      67
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!