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I apologize in advance if this has been covered somewhere before but as I start looking into putting together my PC I notice Dell offers the Windows Vista Premium Home Edition and the Vista Ultimate Edition. Is there any real difference that I am missing out in between the Premium and Ultimate Editions?

Its something like $179 extra and I really want to avoid unnecessary expenses on a machine that's already a tad expensive and that I'm only using to play games and burn movies and music while surfing the web. I'm not into doing anything too fancy with my OS so please let me know if this is truly necessary or at least outline what the primary differences are in functionality.

I gather from some cursory web searching that at the core the main difference is that Vista ultimate combines Vista Business with Home Edition functions. Not sure what that means in a practical every day use kind of sense.

Stravo wrote:I apologize in advance if this has been covered somewhere before but as I start looking into putting together my PC I notice Dell offers the Windows Vista Premium Home Edition and the Vista Ultimate Edition. Is there any real difference that I am missing out in between the Premium and Ultimate Editions?

Its something like $179 extra and I really want to avoid unnecessary expenses on a machine that's already a tad expensive and that I'm only using to play games and burn movies and music while surfing the web. I'm not into doing anything too fancy with my OS so please let me know if this is truly necessary or at least outline what the primary differences are in functionality.

I gather from some cursory web searching that at the core the main difference is that Vista ultimate combines Vista Business with Home Edition functions. Not sure what that means in a practical every day use kind of sense.

If you use your home PC for a bunch of work or business related shit, while also using it for media and gaming applications then I think you'd want to go with Ultimate. If you don't use it for work or business, then go with the home premium.

Flagg wrote:

Stravo wrote:I apologize in advance if this has been covered somewhere before but as I start looking into putting together my PC I notice Dell offers the Windows Vista Premium Home Edition and the Vista Ultimate Edition. Is there any real difference that I am missing out in between the Premium and Ultimate Editions?

Its something like $179 extra and I really want to avoid unnecessary expenses on a machine that's already a tad expensive and that I'm only using to play games and burn movies and music while surfing the web. I'm not into doing anything too fancy with my OS so please let me know if this is truly necessary or at least outline what the primary differences are in functionality.

I gather from some cursory web searching that at the core the main difference is that Vista ultimate combines Vista Business with Home Edition functions. Not sure what that means in a practical every day use kind of sense.

If you use your home PC for a bunch of work or business related shit, while also using it for media and gaming applications then I think you'd want to go with Ultimate. If you don't use it for work or business, then go with the home premium.

Nah, I have to keep work related stuff off my home PC for confidentiality and other reasons. I have a separate work laptop for that. This really would just be for home use.

Stravo wrote:

Flagg wrote:

Stravo wrote:I apologize in advance if this has been covered somewhere before but as I start looking into putting together my PC I notice Dell offers the Windows Vista Premium Home Edition and the Vista Ultimate Edition. Is there any real difference that I am missing out in between the Premium and Ultimate Editions?

Its something like $179 extra and I really want to avoid unnecessary expenses on a machine that's already a tad expensive and that I'm only using to play games and burn movies and music while surfing the web. I'm not into doing anything too fancy with my OS so please let me know if this is truly necessary or at least outline what the primary differences are in functionality.

I gather from some cursory web searching that at the core the main difference is that Vista ultimate combines Vista Business with Home Edition functions. Not sure what that means in a practical every day use kind of sense.

If you use your home PC for a bunch of work or business related shit, while also using it for media and gaming applications then I think you'd want to go with Ultimate. If you don't use it for work or business, then go with the home premium.

Nah, I have to keep work related stuff off my home PC for confidentiality and other reasons. I have a separate work laptop for that. This really would just be for home use.

Then definately go with home premium. Ultimate is just for people who use their PC's as media centers and work/business tools, and for poor fuckers like me who have XP Pro and have to use it to upgrade my XP install if I want the home premium features.

Ultimate comes with a lot of nice extras, though, of which the most visible is Windows DreamScene. Less noticeable enhancements come in the form of BitLocker, Services for UNIX, and other improvements.

That said, is it worth the extra price? Depending on how expensive an upgrade it is (I'm not familiar with Dell's current OEM pricing), you may be better off staying with Home Premium.

You might also consider buying a new Dell with Ubuntu Linux, and installing Windows XP on it for a pleasant dual-boot system.

Those aren't features needed or even wanted by most people for their home computer (well, excepting DreamScene, but that is just eyecandy). The one feature which Stravo might miss is Remote Desktop Connection which allows you to access your work computer from your home computer and work on the work computer remotely. If you aren't already using it though (XP has an earlier version), its not worth the price difference and if you suddenly start needing it for some reason doing an in-place upgrade is probably a better choice (you can upgrade your Vista version on the MS marketplace online, only paying the difference).