Windows 7 Home Premium vs Ultimate?

[Griffolion]

Theres a £100 price difference between them so im assuming there are major differences in things available between the 2 OS's.

Primarily, my PC will be for gaming with the latest games etc and hardware wise it will cope. My question is, is it worth the extra £100 for Ultimate or will my needs be met with just Home Premium. Whether you're broke or Bill Gates, £100 is £100 and i'd sooner save it than blow it on an OS that offers me little extra functionality for gaming!

All your comments would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[wathman]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare-editions/default.aspx
That's the breakdown of features. In summary, if gaming is your only concern, Home Premium gives you the least number of features you will most likely never use. Professional edition adds a few nice extras like XP mode, remote desktop, enhanced networking connectivity, backup and restore. I wouldn't call any of these essential features to the average user though. The additional features that Ultimate has are almost exclusively for enterprise level functions that don't even apply unless you have a corporate server. The bitlocker feature is nice in some respects, but it will kill read/write speeds and therefore not ideal for gamers. Lastly, since you are posting in English, you'd get very little use out of the support for 35 additional languages. I'd save that money for actual games rather than microsoft's shiny black box edition.

 

[Griffolion]

Thanks wathman, I may consider Professional for the XP mode aspect as i have some old programs that sometimes don't agree with Vista. Other than that, i see no point in getting Ultimate for my gaming needs.

Thanks a lot.

 

[wathman]

Here's the specifics on XP Mode, There are some hardware requirements, but I'm assuming your computer is fairly up to date so it should support the virtualization. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7

 

[jasperjones]

I may consider Professional for the XP mode aspect as i have some old programs that sometimes don't agree with Vista.

If you have a copy of XP flying around, you could run those apps in VirtualBox and save some money:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/virtual-xp-virtualbox,2418.html


On a different note, I ran Vista Ultimate for years (I got it real cheap through my university) but never used any of the "exclusive" features--Home Premium would have been just fine. I assume things would be similar on Win 7.

 

[wathman]

what jasper says is very true. Since I have a number of computers on my home network, I find the remote desktop feature always worthwhile, but certainly something I can live without. Vista Ultimate had other pointless features like "Dreamscapes" and exclusive games like Texas Hold 'em... though hardly worth the extra cash. In my opinion, Ultimate editions serve no other purpose than a means for some people to show that they have more money than they know what to do with, and/or they are Microsoft fanboys.

 

[AsAnAtheist]

Windows 7 ultimate features that are not given in Windows Home premium:
* XP Mode. This runs a virtual machine on Windows 7, it very literally is like having a dual boot windows xp/windows 7 without the hassle. You could run into driver issues, particularly with graphics, and usb devices.
* BitLocker. This software is useful for encrypting, and lock hard drive partitions.
* Domain Join (Professional version has this aswell). Advanced networking, usually for connecting many computers in an office securely (home premium can do this as well, however it is prone to security issues which could be patched but require advanced networking capabilities to implement).
* Backup and Restore. This is a very important feature (professional has it as well) because it saves previous versions of folders, create backup files, as well as restore from backups. This is incredibly useful, I have often messed with some programs to tweak them and caused irreparable harm I used restore previous version to fix them.
* Languages: Speak mandarin? No problem. spanish? No problem. Speak another 33 languages? No problem. These are GUI language packs. Meaning everything inside windows will be translated.

!!ADVERTISEMENT WARNING!! Windows 7 Home Premium (and Professional if your eligible) for $29.99 from Digital River!

Spoiler

Also I would like to note that you can get windows 7 home premium for $29.99 from Digital River (digital software distributor, and a partner for Microsoft).... The deal itself is from Microsoft, however Digital River is the distributor of the download (the iso). Ill be receiving my copy today at 12:00PM or tomorrow. Not sure about the time.

IMPORTANT: IF YOUR UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE HAS "ADVANCED" NETWORKING THEN YOU CAN GET WINDOWS 7 PROFESSIONAL FOR $29.99. I am not sure if this deal is extended to everyone, however a month ago Professional was listed for $49.99. The versions come in 32 or 64 bit, you must choose one. That is the only downside to this deal, 32 or 64 bit choose one and there is no going back or forth.

Requirements:
* Email with .edu address @xxxxx.edu
* must have access to that email, the download link/Key will be sent.
* You can still get it, I honestly don't know when it expires, but I am guessing maybe soon.
* There is a different terms of agreement with the student upgrade. Basically they state what you already know. "Should be used for personal use" "Cannot be resold" "1 Windows 7 Licence per computer." "This offer was made for students, and as such it must be purchased for academic purposes. However we have no way of knowing if you will".... Yes it literally tells you that they trust you will use it for academic purposes.

 

[KidHorn]

I installed Ultimate because I have a MSDN subscription and I can install whatever I want and it costs me the same. I'll probably never need Ultimate, but it doesn't hurt to have it.

 

[ultimateraj7]

well don't worry my friend ,I'll help you ,If you need basic home entertainment and gaming you should go with home premium,that will be good & if you need all the features of all editions of windows 7 you must go with ultimate edition,well it depends on you what you like,But by keeping your budget in mind i suggest you to go with home premium ,It is best for gaming,perhaps Dell's alienware experts also suggest home premium,its best for u LOL http://img.tomshardware.com/forum/uk/icones/smilies/bounce.gif

 

[SpaceMilk]

The amount of computer ram your using (including graphics memory) will help determine your os. The os's have a memory limit, with ultimate having the highest.