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What's the best version of Vista for the money?

Home Basic = XP Home

Home Premium = XP Media Center

Business = XP Professional

Ultimate = all available features



I'm going with Home Basic. As if I'm going to pay more money for the Aero Interface. Hah!
 
I would suggest Home Premium. It is only $40 more I think, but you get media center and aero. It is not just a theme, it runs the desktop with your GPU instead of your CPU so it should help performance by freeing up your CPU for other things. Don't know the exact details, but that is my opinion.
 
Originally posted by: MikeyLSU
I would suggest Home Premium. It is only $40 more I think, but you get media center and aero. It is not just a theme, it runs the desktop with your GPU instead of your CPU so it should help performance by freeing up your CPU for other things. Don't know the exact details, but that is my opinion.
Click to expand...

I read over that link and it does seem like Home Premium is the best bet for now. Ultimate obviously gets you everything but the added features really don't seem like anything 99% of users would use them. It seems like Home Premium has all the important features that everyone needs unless there are some important features in Ultimate I am missing.
 
Windows ShadowCopy, System image backup and recovery, Encrypting File System (EFS), and Windows BitLocker Full Drive Encryption comes with Ultimate and neither Home edition. Those are very nice features, at least theoretically, we'll see how well they actually work... 😉
 
I just installed vista business and am unimpressed. At the core it is just xp with flashy graphics and boxes. I put it on an extra hd just to check it out. For what you get they seem way overpriced. If you need to buy it spend the least amount possible, you can always upgrade.
 
I believe the best version for the money is the one you leave on the rack at your favorite software store 🙂...10 years of messing with Microsoft OS's has taught most of us to let someone else go thru the headaches of getting the bugs out of the software. Wait at least 6 months to a year before you buy.
 
If you don't want to do anything but surf the net and play games, Home Basic.
Everything else, Home Premium is the best idea.
 
Originally posted by: ron2368
I just installed vista business and am unimpressed. At the core it is just xp with flashy graphics and boxes.
Click to expand...
Have you read up on the security hardening that went on under the surface, the enhanced enterprise manageability and deployability, etc, or are you just judging by outward appearances of the GUI? 😕

Ultimate (full retail) lets you get up to two Home Premium Upgrades at a discount, so that could be a perk for people looking to upgrade several home PCs. http://www.windowsvista.com/familyoffer

 
It might seem preposterous right now, but if Vista lasts anywhere near as long as XP I don't like the 8GB limit on Home Basic. Of course there is always the upgrade path if you decide you didn't pick the right version the first time.
 
Considering that you'll need to live with it for a few years, the extra money for ultimate isn't bad unless you know you'll never need the features.

Personally I'm waiting at least 6 months.
 
I just installed Home Premium and am running it right now. I have to say that for the extra $40 or whatnot the added media features and Aero theme are certainly worth it
 
Originally posted by: NanoStuff
I believe they all come on the same disc. You could certainly try to pay for home and install ultimate 🙂
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AFAIK, only Ultimate comes with both discs. You have to fill in a web form to get the x64 version for the upgrade.
 
Most popular is Home Premium,I'm using OEM HP Vista x64 and find it excellent on stability and very good at running all my 32 bit software.
 
Home Premium is probably enough for anyone. Although, the fact that Home Premium is restricted to connecting to 10 local machines, I went with one without network restrictions. The network restriction is akin to Windows XP Home being restricted network-wise (same restriction actually).

This is why I don't want to upgrade my Media Server from MCE to the free Vista Home Premium.
 
I'll probably get Ultimate because I use the media center with my Xbox360, but I also need Remote Desktop from work all the time.

So it depends on your needs. For the OP (or anyone for that matter), I'd go with at least Home Premium. So I'll say Home Premium is the best value (though, like I said, I'll be getting Ultimate)
 
I am definitely leaning towards Ultimate (though I will definitely be dual-booting until the gaming side of things is up to snuff). I like the idea of all the bells and whistles and bonus stuff you get with Ultimate.

KT
 
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