Windows 7 - what version?

[archaeo]

Need to bite the bullet and give up my beloved XP, a trusted and reliable friend... A few choices (home premium, professional, and ultimate).
What's the primary difference? What do you use and how does it work?

[The Scientist]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

[LoRd_MuldeR]

You probably will be happy with the "Home Premium" version :)

The most notable advantage of the "Professional" edition is XP Mode. That's a fully-fledged Windows XP system running in a VM and integrated nicely into Windows 7. While the XP Mode definitely is a nice thing, especially if you have legacy software that needs to run under Windows XP or if you are a developer who needs to test his software under Windows XP, it's definitely not a must-have. With your existing Windows XP license, you can easily setup a working Windows XP VM under Windows 7 "Home Premium" for free. Simply use VirtualBox or VMWare Player for that purpose.

The most notable advantage of the "Ultimate" edition is BitLocker, which offers HDD encryption. You don't need to waste your money for this feature, because TrueCrypt offers HDD encryption for free and it works with any edition of Windows 7 (it also works with older versions of Windows, of course). Also "Ultimate" has extended language support, which you probably won't need either.

Oh, and definitely go with the 64-Bit edition! Otherwise you will be limited to ~3 GB of RAM and you won't be able to run 64-Bit apps. 32-Bit apps work perfectly under 64-Bit Windows.

[stax76]

What do you use and how does it work?

Home Premium, real man don't make backups and use encryption. :p

[burfadel]

What processor, RAM, video card are you running? It may not be worth the upgrade...

[Reimar]

32-Bit apps work perfectly under 64-Bit Windows.

16-bit apps however don't (as in, don't run at all). If you have some rather old games you like to play, better figure out a way to install them beforehand.
I suspect not many games produced after 2000 will cause issues though.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

16-bit apps however don't (as in, don't run at all). If you have some rather old games you like to play, better figure out a way to install them beforehand.

Yes. But those old DOS-based games usually don't run "natively" under 32-Bit Windows either, because the VDM behaves quite quirky and isn't 100% DOS compatible. It's more 25% compatible :p

After all you will need to use DOSBox (or something similar) to get 16-Bit games running on NT-based Windows, which works under 64-Bit Windows the same way as it works under 32-Bit Windows.

[archaeo]

Very helpful replies :thanks:

with the 64 bit version, will I run into any problems with encoding using x264, CCE, HCenc, ffdshow, Haali, etc? Essentially I'm asking if there'll be any wrinkles in HD or SD encoding? That's primarily what I use my system for.

I know a couple of positives is that NET is integrated, as are some codecs that are not natively supported under XP...

Finally, how lean does this thing run compared to XP? I hate typical MS bloatware, and am a staunch believer in a light footprint and even lighter system demands.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

with the 64 bit version, will I run into any problems with encoding using x264, CCE, HCenc, ffdshow, Haali, etc? Essentially I'm asking if there'll be any wrinkles in HD or SD encoding? That's primarily what I use my system for.

No, there usually won't be any problems. The only difference with 64-Bit Windows is that you will be able to run the 64-Bit versions of all those applications! Using 64-Bit versions can be a huge advantage, because 64-Bit applications don't have the 2 GB per process memory limit and sometimes they even run faster (which is the case with x264, for example). However you must take care that 64-Bit applications only work with 64-Bit DLL's. 32-Bit and 64-Bit software can run in parallel on the same (64-Bit) system, but 32-Bit and 64-Bit code cannot be mixed within the same process! Therefore you will need 64-Bit Avisynth for 64-Bit x264 (if you need Avisynth input). And you will need 64-Bit Haali Media Splitter plus 64-Bit ffdshow for 64-Bit players. They all are available, so don't worry. Anyway, using the 32-Bit versions will work just fine under 64-Bit Windows. So if you want or need to, you can simply stick with 32-Bit Haali/ffdshow and use a 32-Bit player. After all 64-Bit is a "bonus" that you can use, but don't have to use.

(With drivers it's a bit different though: On 64-Bit Windows you will need 64-Bit drivers, i.e. 32-Bit drivers don't work at all. But for Windows 7 new device drivers are needed anyway, no matter if you use the 32-Bit or the 64-Bit edition. And all Windows 7 drivers are required to be available as 64-Bit versions. So drivers really aren't an issue to worry about)


Finally, how lean does this thing run compared to XP? I hate typical MS bloatware, and am a staunch believer in a light footprint and even lighter system demands.

Windows 7 is bigger than Windows XP. Not really a surprise, eh? But compared to Vista they have stripped it down greatly. And it also feels a lot faster, in my experience.

Of course you cannot expect a nice experience by running Windows 7 on old hardware that barely runs Windows XP...

[stax76]

Same issue with shell extensions, explorer is 64-bit so you can only use 64-bit in-proc shell extensions, 32-bit shell extension will not work, there is no backward compatibility!

[Ghitulescu]

XP Home and Pro have different network engines. Is this perpetuated in W7?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

XP Home and Pro have different network engines. Is this perpetuated in W7?

"[Windows 7 Professional] includes all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium, and adds the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain"

But that's something you usually won't need at home ;)

[RunningSkittle]

buy the OEM version, save $ ;)

[saint-francis]

Want RDP? Get professional, or business or whatever they call it. Ultimate has it too. Home Premium doesn't. Business doesn't have media center though. Home premium and ultimate do.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yes, remote desktop is one thing I've missed when building PCs for other people, and using Home Premium! Being able to set their PC in another room, and work on it via remote desktop to restore data and applications is VERY handy! :)

Of course, most average users don't use remote desktop.

I use it every day, so not having it is a big LOL to me :)

~MiSfit

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Yes, remote desktop is one thing I've missed when building PCs for other people, and using Home Premium!

You really don't need to buy a more expensive edition of Windows 7 just for Remote Desktop! There are plenty of free alternatives.

http://www.realvnc.com/vnc/index.html ;)

(Also from what I read, only the Remote Desktop server is missing in Home Premium, the client is there. So if you need to administer a remote machine via Remote Desktop, this should work anyway)

[Blue_MiSfit]

Oh yes, of course VNC always works. But it's slow, and has to be set up. RDP just works :)

~MiSfit

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Oh yes, of course VNC always works. But it's slow, and has to be set up. RDP just works :)

But is that worth spending the extra money for Winodws 7 Professional? For most people probably not...

(Home Premium -vs- Professional is ~105€ -vs- ~290€)

[stax76]

It's not that much for the System Builder version:

Ultimate: 160€

Pro: 120€

Home Premium: 80€

[SeeMoreDigital]

But is that worth spending the extra money for Winodws 7 Professional? For most people probably not...

(Home Premium -vs- Professional is ~105€ -vs- ~290€)Agreed...

And if you have kids (or know somebody with kids) at school, it might be possible for you to purchase a "student licenced" version of Win7 Pro. Depending on where you live.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Agreed...

And if you have kids (or know somebody with kids) at school, it might be possible for you to purchase a "student licenced" version of Win7 Pro. Depending on where you live.

Or even better: If you are a student and your university participates in MSDN-AA, you get the Pro edition for free :D