Versions and Conclusion
Which version for you?Are you wondering which
version of Vista is right for you? We have selected some of the more interesting
features and outlined them in the table below. As you can see, Ultimate combines
the best features of Home premium and Business editions, but you do a pay a
hefty premium for it in its retail form.
|
Feature |
HB |
HP |
B |
U |
E |
|
Native
DVD Playback |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Themed
Slide Shows |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
Media Center |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Media
Center Extender Support |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Xbox
360 Extender Support |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
Movie Maker HD |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
DVD Maker |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Parental Controls |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Drive
Encryption |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sheduled Backups |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Aero
Interface |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tablet
PC Support |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Premium
Games |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
Slide Show |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
Meeting Space |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Multiple Processors |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Multi
Core Processors |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
Fax and Scan |
|
|
|
|
|
HB – Home Basic
HP – Home
Premium
B - Business
U – Ultimate
E – Enterprise
Conclusion
Overall Microsoft has done a reasonable job with their new OS, but we don’t advocate you rush out and buy a copy. Far too many issues still exist for the enthusiast user, and whilst your mum with her MS Word and internet requirements will get along fine, the average overclocker or gamer will want to steer clear for at least a few more months. The same goes for movie enthusiasts, as many codecs either work sporadically with ridiculously high CPU utilization, or simply crash the media center. The bottom line is that in its current state, XP is a much faster, more compatible and therefore useful OS for the masses. There are huge amounts of hardware still relying on Beta drivers, and whilst this will slowly change, we shouldn’t really have to put in the testing legwork for ATi, nVIDIA, Creative et al. If you are desperate to enjoy the eye candy of Vista then by all means purchase a copy – just make sure you dual boot it alongside XP for a while as we are pretty sure most users will still be using that as their main OS for a good while yet.
Pros:
- Very Pretty
- Some good security improvements
- Compatibility good for the most part
- Built in Media Center and DVD player
Cons:
- Very resource hungry
- Too much annoying nanny-state interferance
- Compatibility with some AMD systems suspect
- Networking slow and broken
- Setting up a network share one long epic fail
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