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Vista Ultimate 32bit v. Vista Enterprise 64bit

roguerower

Diamond Member
I currently have Vista Enterprise 64bit installed as my OS. It runs perfectly, quick, responsive, with no problems.

I have the ability to buy Vista Ultimate 32bit from my University for $5, the amount for the DVD it is on. However, with the switch to 32bit I'll lose a half gig of ram.

I am looking to upgrade to Ultimate because I just purchased an ATI Theater 550 card and would like to be able to use Media Center. I also have a Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive that I installed. Enterprise is great for business, not so much for pleasure.

Is the half gig of ram a worthy sacrifice or should I just stick with my guns and stay with enterprise? I use the PC for school work (office, on-screen takeoff, ms groove), gaming, and watching movies (soon to be TV).
 
If I'm not mistaken, Vista Enterprise = Vista Ultimate with unlimited reinstallation rights. Therefore if you go to 32 bit Ultimate, you're exporting you data, reformatting your drive, reinstalling an OS, reconfiguring the system, reinstalling your apps, and re-importing your data....


...for nothing.


...except you lose the address space and half a gig of memory for your efforts.


...and you lose your unlimited reinstall rights




If you have Vista Business x 64, then all you are 'missing' is the Media Player, Movie Maker, and the backup stuff. All three of which have far superior alternatives availble from 3rd parties. Alternatives which I'd bet you are already using.


If it were me I'd pick up a sharpie from the desk drawer, write "Ultimate" on the DVD you already have, and call it a Done Deal.
 
Wow...you missed out on the entire point of my OP.

I was asking whether gaining the Media Center included with Ultimate would be worth the loss of 1/2 gb of RAM. I don't use MP11 or Movie Maker, but using Media Center for PVR function and watching TV is something that I cannot get with Enterprise and suprisingly enough, Windows did well when putting together that piece of software.
 
Just buy Ultimate for $5, get the 64bit media and reinstall over the top of your existing install...
 
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