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

[roadgeek9]

If I had to choose, I would use Business Edition.

[Master^IT]

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?

[Mr.Yberdo]

I'm using Ultimate, and I like it

[cbosdell]

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.

[+Tantawi Subscriber²]

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

[Raa]

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

[mobilnic]

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.

[Eric Veteran]

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. :)

[mxdan]

Ultimate is way over priced in my opinion. It doesn't have that many more features for what you get with premium. But then again, I've only used it once so I may be completely wrong =/.

[Crazysah]

I am using Ultimate as it was either Ultimate or Premium and the price difference was not much here so I went for Ultimate!

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

♠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)

[DJ_Alex]

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.

[Skulltrail-old]

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)

[cbosdell]

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.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

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.

Same here, but the 64 bit would be nice.

[zerologic]

Windows Vista x64 SP1 (Y)

[crawlerbot]

Vista ultimate x64 SP1

love it

[ViperAFK]

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.

[soldier1st]

it does not nag you but in the control panel and in another area it says you can upgrade.

[Owen W Veteran]

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 ;)

[Quillz]

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.

[Skulltrail-old]

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.

[Julius Caro]

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

[mujjuman]

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 December 2, 2008 by mujjuman

[Pompeius]

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.