7 home, premium, pro or ultimate?

[StarBound]

So its nearly time to make that step to windows 7. But which one to get? What do they have that the other doesnt?

As far as I've been told home doesnt have media center which premium does. Premium doesnt have remote access or system backup tools that pro has. And pro on the other hand hasnt got something that ultimate has.

So can anyone elaborate on what they heard?

[Monty]

If you want XP mode, get Pro or Ultimate, otherwise premium should suffice

[Ron2K]

Comparison of Windows 7 editions (Wikipedia)

Have a look through that, work out which features you need and which features you don't, and base your decision on that.

[StarBound]

The choice is between the pro and premium now. So who thinks that we will hit the 16gb ram cap soonish (3-4 years) and apart from having multi core cpus we will be using multi multi-core cpus?

[Monty]

you can always upgrade to pro at a later stage if needed

[rustypup]

given the narrow margins in price point, bite the bullet and take pro or "ultimate"...

[StarBound]

Remember if I accidently miss that bullit my brain will be all over the floor.

The only 2 things I see that's the problem is that memory limit and the cpu limit though I doubt with 4 cores and another 4 thread handles it should be a problem. But that 16gb memory gap is too close. But then again what are the chances that I will use that much more memory? Developers will go with max profit so they will be using 32-bit which is a 4gb memory limit for at least 2-4 more years. Even if the pc fails consoles like the ps3 and xbox360 only has 512mb so there should be a way around this.

[Sojourn]

Star, much ado about nothing.
Get Ultimate and rest knowing that your license is sorted and you have all the features on offer.
Worrying about 4 cores and 16mb ram (gap too close? I lolled - post that again in 5 years and I might pay attention).
If app development for legacy (yes, XP is legacy) OS's are needed, make it dual-boot.

[Sojourn]

given the narrow margins in price point, bite the bullet and take pro or "ultimate"...

I tired finding pricing for Ultimate, but all I can find is the "upgrade" versions.
Anyone know what the price is likely to be for the full product?

[ryanrich]

given the narrow margins in price point, bite the bullet and take pro or "ultimate"...

Indeed. I needed at least Pro because of domain support, but Ultimate was like R100 more so just went for that.

Sojourn: Isn't this the full product? This is the one that I've pre-ordered.

[Sojourn]

ryanrich, - Take2 is blocked for me at the office

[GreyWolf]

given the narrow margins in price point, bite the bullet and take pro or "ultimate"...

really? you are advising someone to BUY windows??????

are you feeling ok?

[Interfan]

Home premium does have backup it just doesn't have shadow copy, also lacks bit defender and the advanced networking features like domain. If you are using your pc mainly for gaming,some multimedia and work and excell then there's no reason to go for pro or ultimate. I will be getting home premium.

[ryanrich]

Home premium does have backup it just doesn't have shadow copy, also lacks bit defender and the advanced networking features like domain. If you are using your pc mainly for gaming,some multimedia and work and excell then there's no reason to go for pro or ultimate. I will be getting home premium.

BitLocker you mean. It also features the ability to run multiple VM's and boot off VHD's, EFS, more than 2 physical CPU's and physical memory up to 192GB, Windows XP mode and quite a few other things that business users would find useful such as network backup and UNIX app support.

As you say though, for general home use the Home Premium version should be fine. I would probably get that if I didn't use my laptop for work purposes as well, as it's a pain in the backside working when not connected to the domain...

[StarBound]

I'll also be going for the Home Premium. What I am gonna do though is create a duel boot. I cant write off windows xp yet.

Can windows 7 partition your harddrive just like linux or am I screwed in this instance?

[Monty]

I'll also be going for the Home Premium. What I am gonna do though is create a duel boot. I cant write off windows xp yet.

Can windows 7 partition your harddrive just like linux or am I screwed in this instance?

oh, no. Windows wrote off partitioning of drives years ago! Linux is also following suite.

Of course 7 can, and it's an easy to use tool.

[StarBound]

Last microsoft partitioner I used was fdisk. When installing ubuntu I was greeted with the linux partitioner which by all account wasnt as friendly as I would have hoped but it did manage to split my drive without loosing my xp ntfs partition.

[Ron2K]

You'll find that things have evolved considerably since the FDISK days.

[Mclaren]

do you think take2's pricing will remain at this or are these prices preorder. i wanna buy it but its a lot to fork out right now. (i know its cheaper than vista, but still got a budget)

[Interfan]

do you think take2's pricing will remain at this or are these prices preorder. i wanna buy it but its a lot to fork out right now. (i know its cheaper than vista, but still got a budget)

The pricing seems to be similar across the e-tailers with kalahari,zaps and prophecy also offering about the same with the odd difference of R100 but nothing much. I doubt it's all preorder pricing.

[jphegers]

We have three CP's in the house and all have Windows XP that were pre-installed. I now want to change to Windows 7 Home premium, do i have to buy a copy of windows 7 for each of the the three computers or can a person use one copy on all three machines?

[Monty]

You can get a Home Premium family pack that has three copies

[jphegers]

Does it cost cheaper when buying it this way? I have heard that some of the windows 7 comes with both the 32bit and the 64bit version can someone confirm whether this is correct or not.

[Interfan]

Does it cost cheaper when buying it this way? I have heard that some of the windows 7 comes with both the 32bit and the 64bit version can someone confirm whether this is correct or not.

All retail copies come with both 32bit and 64 bit disc. The family pack is 3 upgrade retail packages. Haven't seen any of the SA e-tailers listing it so far yet. It's being listed for 129 pounds in the uk and $150 in the US.

[StarBound]

My supplier told me that windows 7 is avalible as a 32-bit package as of today. But the 64-bit version might only make it from friday or later. From the sounds of it 32/64 bit is still seperate just like vista.