Windows Vista Home Premium vs. Vista Basic

Noobtastic

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Jul 9, 2005
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I'm not sure which to get.

Is they a significant difference between the two?


I'll be playing battlefield, if that has anything to do with it...




comments will be appreciated!

 

Noema

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Feb 15, 2005
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Off the top of my head:

Basic doesn't support Aero glass nor most of the accelerated desktop eye-candy (like Flid 3D or live taskbar thumbnails)

Basic supports a maximum of 4GB of RAM, whereas Home Premium can support up to 16GB (64-bit of course; for 32-bit this difference is irrelevant as both will cap out at around 3.2GB)

Basic doesn't include Home Premium's Media Center nor Windows DVD maker.

Basic doesn't include Tablet PC functionality, nor touch screen support.

All in all, Basic is intended for entry level hardware. If you are using it on a mid-range or better machine, I suggest you get Home Premium.
 

Noema

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Feb 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: Trashman
not much of a difference, maybe 20-25 dollars.
get Home Premium.

I think Home Basic is $199 retail and HP is $239 retail, so yeah, the difference is small, and HP is totally worth the extra dough.

Basic is essentially crippled, in my opinion, and I wouldn't run it on anything but an older laptop.

 

Fraggable

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Jul 20, 2005
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Originally posted by: Noema
Originally posted by: Trashman
not much of a difference, maybe 20-25 dollars.
get Home Premium.

I think Home Basic is $199 retail and HP is $239 retail, so yeah, the difference is small, and HP is totally worth the extra dough.

Basic is essentially crippled, in my opinion, and I wouldn't run it on anything but an older laptop.

Oh my, not at all. Home Basic is $95, Premium is $114. Those are OEM versions, but who needs MS support anyway when you have the AT community?
 

Noema

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Feb 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: Fraggable
Originally posted by: Noema
Originally posted by: Trashman
not much of a difference, maybe 20-25 dollars.
get Home Premium.

I think Home Basic is $199 retail and HP is $239 retail, so yeah, the difference is small, and HP is totally worth the extra dough.

Basic is essentially crippled, in my opinion, and I wouldn't run it on anything but an older laptop.

Oh my, not at all. Home Basic is $95, Premium is $114. Those are OEM versions, but who needs MS support anyway when you have the AT community?

Well, yeah, OEM is cheaper, and I agree, it's a great deal. I myself use an OEM version of HP. :)

But then again, Retail is not only about the support: it's also about the fact that the license can effectively be transferred, so the OP might also want that option available.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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I picked up a bunch of Vista Home Basic upgrades for $30 ea, at the CompUSA closing sale.

Basic is pretty stripped-down, it's missing a bunch of features and limited to 8GB of RAM (64-bit version). I only picked them up to resell as they were so cheap, but for someone that didn't care about the Aero interface, and didn't need Media Center features, it could be a viable option. It still supports DX10 gaming, AFAIK.

If someone wants "the true Vista experience", however, then skip basic and move on to Home Premium.