Choosing the Right Version of Windows 7

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1128&tag=nl.e539' target='_blank'>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1128&tag=nl.e539</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"One of the most frequent questions I get these days comes from people who&rsquo;ve been running the Windows 7 beta and RC and are planning to upgrade to the final version when it&rsquo;s available on October 22. &ldquo;Which edition of Windows 7 do I need?&rdquo; Interestingly, this question also comes up in other contexts as well. When Apple defenders appear in the TalkBack section here, they regularly insist that the Home Premium edition is &ldquo;crippled&rdquo; and &ldquo;stripped-down.&rdquo; Sooner or later, they insist, any self-respecting Windows user will have to upgrade. Based on that argument, they say that you must use the more expensive Ultimate edition to compare the costs of a Windows PC to those of a Mac, which comes in only a single edition. As you&rsquo;ll see from the table below, this isn&rsquo;t accurate."</em></p><p>Check out the linked article for the full table comparing the versions.&nbsp; The short version is, that Home Premium is a very comprehensive product and will suit 99.9% of users just fine.&nbsp; The additional features in the upgraded version are pretty specialized and if you need something more, it will be pretty obvious to you when you look at the list.&nbsp;</p>

[alanjrobertson]

That's a useful table, Chris - thanks for higlighting the article.

I made the mistake of buying Vista Ultimate (in part on the promise of the 'Ultimate Extras' promised by Microsoft that never materialised) and it was certainly a waste of money. I think I'd be pretty happy with Windows 7 Home Premium although I still wish they'd simplified the SKUs a bit. I really hope they come out with a 'home licence' option given more and more of us have multiple PCs.

One bit I was a bit surprised to see in the table was the lack of Presentation Mode from Home Premium - given it's in the equivalent Vista version (and is quite handy on a laptop for quickly ensuring the screensaver stays off and screen stays on). It's certainly not something worth paying for but seems funny they've moved it from Home Premium to Ultimate.

[Rob Alexander]

Actually, they've moved presentation mode from Home Premium to Professional. Ultimate has it too, but you don't have to pony up the full price for Ultimate to get it. It was one of the reasons that I bought Professional instead of Home Premium under the current sale prices.