The Many Versions of Windows
Unlike Windows XP which initially launched with only the Home and Professional versions, Microsoft is coming out of the gate with numerous different versions of Vista to target different market segments. There's a lot to talk about, so let's first take a look at the different versions, their prices, and their features:
All things considered, as the most stripped down version of Windows available to consumers, Home Basic is not really an option as too much is removed for it to be truly useful to a lot of people. While Aero Glass tends to be as much eye-candy as it is a useful feature, it does serve its purposes. This leaves most users to pick from Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate.
Given the price of the Ultimate edition of Vista - higher than any previous version of Windows - it's hard to recommend it right off the bat. For anyone that needs every last feature on a computer there's really no other option, but otherwise there's a lot of money to be saved by skipping out on a feature or two that may never get used. BitLocker is the only feature that the Ultimate edition has that no other edition has, but given it requires a Trusted Platform Module to be used - which few computers have - on its own it won't sell many copies of Ultimate. Microsoft has also released at least one other Ultimate Extra, but again most people won't want to spend the extra money for a poker game.
As for the Home Premium and Business editions, our best guess would be that it will be the Business edition that becomes the enthusiast standard like XP Professional was before it. Media Center is still an application better suited for use with a TV, whereas Business comes with Previous Versions and Remote Desktop, the latter of which is largely responsible for selling enthusiasts on XP Professional over XP Home. However, Microsoft has done a fairly good job here of splitting features between the two to entice users into buying the Ultimate edition. Business lacks the Parental Controls functionality and Home Premium lacks Previous Versions, and the only way to get both is to grab the Ultimate edition. In short, picking the right version of Vista will be about compromises, either giving up features you may want or giving up more money in order to get everything. Microsoft has also indicated that users will be able to purchase incremental upgrades to Vista, so if you start at Home Basic you may be able to upgrade to Premium and eventually Ultimate over time. Details about what upgrades will be allowed as well as the upgrade prices are not yet finalized.
It's on this note that the issue of piracy comes up, as it's a poorly kept secret that Windows XP Professional was easily and quickly pirated due to there being a version for large businesses that used volume license keys. Microsoft has since then rectified the situation somewhat with the Windows Genuine Advantage system for alerting users who are using pirated copies and locking them out of various Microsoft services like Windows Update, but nonetheless XP was fundamentally easily broken in terms of anti-piracy features. So far however this does not appear to be the case for Vista, as Microsoft has done away with VLK in favor of requiring activation on all copies, with the Enterprise version of Business using a keyserver. The lack of an immediately piratable version of Vista will undoubtedly slow its adoption compared to XP, and the Business versions' popularity will not be as lopsided.
We've also had several questions since our initial articles about what can be done with legitimate versions of Windows given that Vista has better activation controls than XP. Among other poorly kept secrets, it's known that Microsoft did not stick to the End User License Agreement for XP very well for OEM copies - while the EULA for an OEM copy of XP made it clear that it was for installation on a single machine only and tied to that machine (or rather its motherboard) for the rest of time, Microsoft has been letting XP users reactivate anyhow without trouble. As a result users who had purchased OEM copies of XP back in 2001 have continued to reuse it up through today, which is an excellent deal for them given the low price of the OEM versions spread over 5 years. While the EULA has not changed for Vista as far as this policy goes, there have been concerns and rumors that Microsoft will be clamping down on this practice.
To be fair, we have no way to predict exactly what Microsoft will do here. It's possible they will continue this policy, but that's not a good enough answer as they can change it at any time given that they control the activation system for Vista. Simply put, the only way to be sure that a purchased copy of Vista will be transferable to a new computer is to get a retail version, either as an upgrade or a full version. Going with an OEM version may work now, but it will always be a gamble on if/when Microsoft will clamp down on transfers.
The retail upgrade versions also deserve a quick disclaimer here about how they have changed since XP. Previously you only needed to prove ownership of a previous version of Windows to use an upgrade disc for a clean install, which was as easy as inserting the disc for an older version of Windows. According to Microsoft's own notes this is no longer the case; Vista upgrades work as upgrades only and a previous version of Windows must be fully installed and activated to let the upgrade install. As this requires a user to effectively install two operating systems if they have an upgrade disc, this is not a welcome change - new installations will take much longer now as the gains made by Vista's new image-based installer will be offset by the slow installation procedures for old versions of Windows. This change is a fundamentally poor decision by Microsoft. A workaround has already been found, but it still requires installing Vista twice.
Unlike Windows XP which initially launched with only the Home and Professional versions, Microsoft is coming out of the gate with numerous different versions of Vista to target different market segments. There's a lot to talk about, so let's first take a look at the different versions, their prices, and their features:
| Windows Vista Prices | |||
| Retail | Upgrade | OEM | |
| Home Basic | $200 | $100 | $100 |
| Home Premium | $240 | $160 | $120 |
| Business | $300 | $200 | $150 |
| Ultimate | $400 | $250 | $200 |
| Windows Vista Feature Comparison | ||||
| Home Basic | Home Premium | Business | Ultimate | |
| Aero Glass | X | X | X | |
| Mobility Center | X | X | X | |
| Meeting Space | X | X | X | |
| Media Center | X | X | ||
| Parental Controls | X | X | X | |
| Previous Versions | X | X | ||
| Remote Desktop | X | X | ||
| BitLocker | X | |||
All things considered, as the most stripped down version of Windows available to consumers, Home Basic is not really an option as too much is removed for it to be truly useful to a lot of people. While Aero Glass tends to be as much eye-candy as it is a useful feature, it does serve its purposes. This leaves most users to pick from Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate.
Given the price of the Ultimate edition of Vista - higher than any previous version of Windows - it's hard to recommend it right off the bat. For anyone that needs every last feature on a computer there's really no other option, but otherwise there's a lot of money to be saved by skipping out on a feature or two that may never get used. BitLocker is the only feature that the Ultimate edition has that no other edition has, but given it requires a Trusted Platform Module to be used - which few computers have - on its own it won't sell many copies of Ultimate. Microsoft has also released at least one other Ultimate Extra, but again most people won't want to spend the extra money for a poker game.
As for the Home Premium and Business editions, our best guess would be that it will be the Business edition that becomes the enthusiast standard like XP Professional was before it. Media Center is still an application better suited for use with a TV, whereas Business comes with Previous Versions and Remote Desktop, the latter of which is largely responsible for selling enthusiasts on XP Professional over XP Home. However, Microsoft has done a fairly good job here of splitting features between the two to entice users into buying the Ultimate edition. Business lacks the Parental Controls functionality and Home Premium lacks Previous Versions, and the only way to get both is to grab the Ultimate edition. In short, picking the right version of Vista will be about compromises, either giving up features you may want or giving up more money in order to get everything. Microsoft has also indicated that users will be able to purchase incremental upgrades to Vista, so if you start at Home Basic you may be able to upgrade to Premium and eventually Ultimate over time. Details about what upgrades will be allowed as well as the upgrade prices are not yet finalized.
It's on this note that the issue of piracy comes up, as it's a poorly kept secret that Windows XP Professional was easily and quickly pirated due to there being a version for large businesses that used volume license keys. Microsoft has since then rectified the situation somewhat with the Windows Genuine Advantage system for alerting users who are using pirated copies and locking them out of various Microsoft services like Windows Update, but nonetheless XP was fundamentally easily broken in terms of anti-piracy features. So far however this does not appear to be the case for Vista, as Microsoft has done away with VLK in favor of requiring activation on all copies, with the Enterprise version of Business using a keyserver. The lack of an immediately piratable version of Vista will undoubtedly slow its adoption compared to XP, and the Business versions' popularity will not be as lopsided.
We've also had several questions since our initial articles about what can be done with legitimate versions of Windows given that Vista has better activation controls than XP. Among other poorly kept secrets, it's known that Microsoft did not stick to the End User License Agreement for XP very well for OEM copies - while the EULA for an OEM copy of XP made it clear that it was for installation on a single machine only and tied to that machine (or rather its motherboard) for the rest of time, Microsoft has been letting XP users reactivate anyhow without trouble. As a result users who had purchased OEM copies of XP back in 2001 have continued to reuse it up through today, which is an excellent deal for them given the low price of the OEM versions spread over 5 years. While the EULA has not changed for Vista as far as this policy goes, there have been concerns and rumors that Microsoft will be clamping down on this practice.
To be fair, we have no way to predict exactly what Microsoft will do here. It's possible they will continue this policy, but that's not a good enough answer as they can change it at any time given that they control the activation system for Vista. Simply put, the only way to be sure that a purchased copy of Vista will be transferable to a new computer is to get a retail version, either as an upgrade or a full version. Going with an OEM version may work now, but it will always be a gamble on if/when Microsoft will clamp down on transfers.
The retail upgrade versions also deserve a quick disclaimer here about how they have changed since XP. Previously you only needed to prove ownership of a previous version of Windows to use an upgrade disc for a clean install, which was as easy as inserting the disc for an older version of Windows. According to Microsoft's own notes this is no longer the case; Vista upgrades work as upgrades only and a previous version of Windows must be fully installed and activated to let the upgrade install. As this requires a user to effectively install two operating systems if they have an upgrade disc, this is not a welcome change - new installations will take much longer now as the gains made by Vista's new image-based installer will be offset by the slow installation procedures for old versions of Windows. This change is a fundamentally poor decision by Microsoft. A workaround has already been found, but it still requires installing Vista twice.
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BPB - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
If you want Quick Launch to work that way, just add the icons you want into the Qucik Launch folder. Then unlock your taskbar and drag the bar which allows the display of the Quick Launch icons all the way left. Then lock your taskbar. Now you can just click the arrow that shows in the taskbar and it will display all your Quick Launch icons snd "disappear on the fly". It's not perfect, but it's closer to what you want. No wasted space AND you get your Quick Launch icons.
darklight0tr - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Quick Launch is one on my favorite features in Windows, because it allows you to quickly launch commonly used programs. I just wish Microsoft would have enhanced it with additional functionality. I have to use a 3rd party program to the features I want to Quick Launch.Despite the issues with x64, that's the version I will get when I migrate to Vista. I just wish Microsoft would have been able to release Vista as a x64 only OS. The availability of a 32bit version of Vista will keep the migration to x64 to a crawl.
creathir - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
I cannot stand it... it does drive me nuts...Will most users not use it? I highly doubt that. Turning it off is not as easy as "1...2...3... OFF!"
It does involve some tinkering to get it to turn off...
The problem is, this is how things should have been from the beginning, but we have been spoiled by the lack of security. I really do not find that it gets in the way or anything like that.
I'm not sure if I would QUITE go that far... given the vast majority will have NO CLUE on how to turn it off…
Just my thoughts.
- Creathir
Locutus465 - Friday, February 2, 2007 - link
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/turn_off_user_account...">http://vistasupport.mvps.org/turn_off_user_account...One of the many links I found by going to start and typing into the new Windows Search box located there in Vista :)
Search is going to be one of the biggest selling points, works much better in Vista than it did in XP (I've used it in both).
Aikouka - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Jarred's right, it's actually very easy to turn off. Although if you turn it off, Windows will bug you to no end in their protection center to turn it back on (which you can turn that off too :P). I ended up turning it off when trying to install drivers for my Realtek ALC888 codec on my Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6, because at first, the driver install kept looping and asking if I really wanted to install unsigned drivers. I kept hitting yes, they kept going back and prompting me. After Vista said the driver install failed and asked if I'd like to run it in a higher privileged mode, I did so. Then the install told me that I needed to be <b>ON VISTA</b> to install the drivers. I ended up installing a different set of drivers that I didn't even expect to work with the ALC888-DD.Also, to add in with drivers, UAC caused a weird issue with the 100.54 drivers from nVidia. When UAC prompted you, the screen fades into a B&W gray-ish hue ( kind of like when shutting down XP ), but when you're running DualView on Vista and you hit a button to close the prompt (being it accepting the action or whatever), the other screen literally freaks out. It goes to some weird graphical pattern for a second and then goes back to normal. Although the problem doesn't stay, it's quite noticeable out of the corner of my eye.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vista+tur...">Easy as 1-2-3, or just http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/libr...">get it from Microsoft. My feeling is that most people will *want* it off, even if they don't know how to shut it off, and I'll reword that sentence appropriately. :)Jedi2155 - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Is there still Memory Address limitation with the 32-bit version of Vista?Like say, I had a SLI board (eVGA 680i in particular), and I wanted more than 2 GB, would I still hit the 2.25 GB wall due to address bus or does Vista gets around this and is actually able to address the 4 GB if I had that installed? Or is my only option is still go with x64 version of Vista....
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
It depends on motherboard and BIOS as well as the OS. AFAIK, you can't get more than 3.5GB (and often only 3GB) of accessible memory with any 32-bit OS on x86. The top 512MB is reserved. Perhaps it is OS dependent and you can get closer to 4GB, but for MS operating systems I think it's always been 3.5GB max. Whereas in XP you needed to use the /3gb switch for the OS, on Vista you use:BCDEDIT IncreaseUserVA [size]
Or something like that. I don't know if the maximum is any different on 32-bit Vista than 32-bit XP, but I would bet it's the same.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
You're almost right. It's possible to get all 4GB(and more) on a 32bit system when using Physical Address Extension. However most consumer level boards don't implement this at the hardware level past what's required to support the NX bit(which also requires PAE), so most people can not get all 4GB in 32bit mode. With XP and Vista, you can get all 4GB as long as PAE is fully supported, however actually using PAE to get 4GB+ brings about some compatibility/performance problems, which is why 64bit addressing is a cleaner solution.The /3gb switch is an entirely different thing, it adjusts the 2/2 split between user processes and the kernel so that user processes can go up to 3GB by taking some memory from the kernel's space(which also can cause problems, oy).
Spoelie - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
I haven't read the article yet (am doing so in a minute) but just a thought by having a first look at the article index: I was wondering what impact Aero would have on power consumption. We know that it runs the UI on the graca, so the graca would be in use all the time. Is the load on it high or low? You can collect a lot of data on such a thing (power consumption while idling, moving windows around, ... on vista with aero, without aero, on winxp...)It could be that it gets a mention in the review, it's just not apparant from the index. I'll apologise beforehand if it does.