I am currently running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 and I think it's about time that I upgrade but the price of Windows 7 Ultimate is simply to much for me at the moment. I looked at a comparison of the different versions and the only feature that stood out to me was Professional's ability to run a program in XP compatibility mode which is a nice feature but it's still not worth an extra $40 to me.

I am a programmer so I would like features like IIS and the ability to directly link to my FTP server from windows explorer which I am able to do currently on vista but it's kinda bugged so I don't really use it but I would like to in Windows 7. Also I only have 4GBs of ram and some of the programs I run can come close to 2GBs of ram so that means my OS should not exceed 2GBs or I will have some problems. I'm not really sure how much memory windows 7 normally takes up so that could be a major factor in decided if I will upgrade or not.

I could just wait for the price of ultimate to go down since vista for the most part is serving all my needs though it is a bit bloated and I'm sure I would get slightly better performance by upgrading to Windows 7.

Does anyone have some good insight to share on this?

Home Premium will handle all your needs outside of a corporate environment.

There are many more differences between Windows 7 home and professional which Microsoft neglect to mention, one being that 'gpedit.msc' can only be used in the professional version (which irked me when I went to clean up a friend's computer running the home version).

Since you're running Vista ultimate I reckon you'd discover alot of other things missing when running the home version of Windows 7. Just get the professional version and sleep well.

Professional, I can't imagine not having "Windows XP Mode" when in Win 7 while I still use some of the software that I do.

You don't really need anything beyond that, in my opinion.

Quote: Original post by necreia
Professional, I can't imagine not having "Windows XP Mode" when in Win 7 while I still use some of the software that I do.

You don't really need anything beyond that, in my opinion.

there shouldn't be any software that really needs a full xp, most can be done with compatibility settings and maybe full access rights on c:\program files\youroldappofchoice.

and if something's really needed (as said, VERY unlikely), use virtualbox.

but if something's really needed, better get a more modern application for it.

professional is not needed for a home user.

Quote: Original post by necreia
Professional, I can't imagine not having "Windows XP Mode" when in Win 7 while I still use some of the software that I do.

You don't really need anything beyond that, in my opinion.

I've got W7 Professional x64 (from MSDNAA) and I don't even have the XP mode. I use VMWare Player on the extremely rare occasion that some kind of virtualisation is needed.

I had Home Premium on an old laptop and, as others have stated, it's perfectly adequate for a home user (hence the name). I don't even use half of the Media Centre stuff as well.

Alright I'm pretty sure I'm not buying ultimate but I'm on the fence between home and professional. Is there anything else besides Group Policy Editor and XP compatibility mode? To me those features are only worth about $20-$25 but it's a $40 difference between home and professional. I'm going to need a bit more to make buying professional worth it to me.

If you use Remote Desktop to connect to your machine remotely, that is not included in Home Premium, so you'd need Professional for that. Of course, there are free alternatives like TeamViewer if that were your only reason for upgrading.

You can still use the Remote Desktop client to connect to other machines though; that restriction only applies to incoming connections.

Click on irreversible's link and then look under "Feature comparison" and you will see a pretty detailed list.

home premium. i use it.

most of my xp app work fine. win7 already handle this for me by having separate 64bit app dir and 32 bit dir (i bought 64bit). some app need to be run with admit right for the first time (such as game make 8 when the registration app want to register it), and certain software when they want to update themself (houdini apprentice want to get a new license). i rarely use virtualbox.

Quote: Original post by SteveDeFacto
Alright I'm pretty sure I'm not buying ultimate but I'm on the fence between home and professional. Is there anything else besides Group Policy Editor and XP compatibility mode? To me those features are only worth about $20-$25 but it's a $40 difference between home and professional. I'm going to need a bit more to make buying professional worth it to me.

group editor is just a fancy way of editing the registry, and you should not have need for that on a home environment (and if so, just use regedit).

xp compatibility mode is supported, there's just no virtual xp in there (a real virtual machine). for that, just use virtualbox or some free vmware solution, or what ever you like.

for remotedesktop, use teamviewer or something else. => no need to pay extra.