Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Professional?

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:45:31 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Sam Hill:
I think you should get at least
Home Premium. After all, it's only a few bucks more than Home Basic. Skip
your latte for a day.

Point taken.

But then I'm on to obsessing about the OEM versions - which are a
good hundred bucks less.....

But only $10 less than Upgrade versions, according to Newegg.

(I don't buy the argument some make about an Upgrade version requiring
a previous valid license. IMO, an Upgrade version qualifies by itself,
its name notwithstanding.)

--

Char Jackson

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message ...
Per Char Jackson:

I guess now I'm trolling for somebody who has both (or even all
3: Basic, Premium, and Pro...)
--
Pete Cresswell

If you get hold of a Windows dvd you can delete the efi.cfg file and re-burn
the iso image, then when you go to install Windows 7 you'll be offered the
choice of Starter, Premium, Professional or Ultimate.

http://www.neowin.net/news/make-a-un...disc-with-ease

As you can install any version without a key you can try each one for
thirty days and see what works for you.
You only need a key to activate any version you install after 30 days.
During the thirty day grace period Windows will behave as if it is activated
and will download all updates etc.
(Also there are hacks around to increase the 30 day limit to 120 days.)

Sam Hill wrote:

I read somewhere that with Basic, you can only run a couple of apps at a
time. If'n I was you, I'd look into that. I think you should get at least
Home Premium. After all, it's only a few bucks more than Home Basic. Skip
your latte for a day.

The three simultaneous apps restriction was in Win7 Starter. According
to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions), MS has
given up on that (ridiculous) restriction.

Win7 basic 64-bits will allow a max of 8GB, 64-bit Home Basic will
take 16GB. There's also a difference in simultaneous file and printer
sharing connections allowed. Scroll down to the bottom of the
Wikipedia article for a comparison table.

--
Tim Slattery

Tim Slattery wrote:

Sam Hill wrote:
I read somewhere that with Basic, you can only run a couple of apps at a
time.

The three simultaneous apps restriction was in Win7 Starter.

Ah, okay. So many versions, so little time...

So many $$$...

Per Joe Morris:
Wikipedia has a concise summary of the differences between the various
editions of Windows 7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

That was informative. Thanks.

Noting that premium includes "Windows Aero" and Basic does not I
had to wonder what Aero was.... so I went to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero and found:

"Windows Aero is a set of interface and design guidelines used in
most editions of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating
systems released by Microsoft. ...

The Aero look was designed to take advantage of the new
capabilities of the Windows operating system, featuring a new
modern look primarily using glass and aluminum appearances with
greater uses of translucency, animations, and eye candy."

"The Aero interface was unveiled for Windows Vista as a complete
redesign of the Windows interface."

'Complete Redesign' ????

Per below, I guess Basic is out of the question... but whatever I
wind up with I think I'm looking for or maybe a way to suppress
all the Aero BS. I think there's some sort of add-on that does
this.

Basic sounds out of the question bco the stuff about restrictions
vis-a-vis country that it is used in. "Emerging Countries" in a
nutshell...

This from
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...u-need-to-know
way back in Feb of 2009:

"Consumers will only be able to buy either Windows 7 Home Premium
or Windows 7 Professional at retail—and deliberately so;
Microsoft wants to try and limit consumer confusion by only
putting the two versions in front of consumers."

"Limit consumer confusion..." Riiiiiight...



But wait... There's more.... and this isn't even a Ginsu cutlery
ad...

Per
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...-How_to_Tell-9

- It looks like Premium does not support multiple CPUs....
My boxes have 2 CPUs... but I don't know enough to tell for
sure if that's a deal-breaker. Sounds like one on the
surface though...

- Professional supports Dynamic Discs. If the implementation is
like the old WHS (dissimilar discs allowed, individual discs
readable on other machines) that sounds pretty good to me
for, say, media center use. Gotta look into that one...

--
Pete Cresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Joe Morris:
Wikipedia has a concise summary of the differences between the various
editions of Windows 7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

That was informative. Thanks.

Noting that premium includes "Windows Aero" and Basic does not I
had to wonder what Aero was.... so I went to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero and found:

"Windows Aero is a set of interface and design guidelines used in
most editions of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating
systems released by Microsoft. ...

The Aero look was designed to take advantage of the new
capabilities of the Windows operating system, featuring a new
modern look primarily using glass and aluminum appearances with
greater uses of translucency, animations, and eye candy."

"The Aero interface was unveiled for Windows Vista as a complete
redesign of the Windows interface."

'Complete Redesign' ????

Per below, I guess Basic is out of the question... but whatever I
wind up with I think I'm looking for or maybe a way to suppress
all the Aero BS. I think there's some sort of add-on that does
this.

Basic sounds out of the question bco the stuff about restrictions
vis-a-vis country that it is used in. "Emerging Countries" in a
nutshell...

This from
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...u-need-to-know
way back in Feb of 2009:

"Consumers will only be able to buy either Windows 7 Home Premium
or Windows 7 Professional at retail—and deliberately so;
Microsoft wants to try and limit consumer confusion by only
putting the two versions in front of consumers."

"Limit consumer confusion..." Riiiiiight...



But wait... There's more.... and this isn't even a Ginsu cutlery
ad...

Per
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...-How_to_Tell-9

- It looks like Premium does not support multiple CPUs....
My boxes have 2 CPUs... but I don't know enough to tell for
sure if that's a deal-breaker. Sounds like one on the
surface though...

- Professional supports Dynamic Discs. If the implementation is
like the old WHS (dissimilar discs allowed, individual discs
readable on other machines) that sounds pretty good to me
for, say, media center use. Gotta look into that one...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositing_window_manager

"The most commonly used compositing window managers include:
...

Microsoft Windows - the Desktop Window Manager"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_Window_Manager

"Desktop Window Manager is the window manager in
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 that enables
the Windows Aero graphical user interface and visual theme."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero

"Use of DWM, and by extension the Aero Glass theme, requires
a video card with 128 MB of RAM, supporting pixel shader 2.0,
and with WDDM-compatible drivers."

That kinda hints at things, but in true Wikipedia fashion,
doesn't spell it out.

On a "traditional" OS, a program draws into a window. A window
is a rectangle, with a pixmap in it. No transformations are applied,
with the exception of perhaps an (X,Y) offset to the rectangle's
origin on the screen. And perhaps clipping of parts that aren't visible,
that sort of thing. The clipping might be implemented by
CPU calculations, and the GPU would be used as a "dumb frame buffer".
The GPU doesn't get warm, because it's not accelerating or rendering
anything.

A "compositing" window manager, is a transformation of the rectangle.
The program thinks it's drawing into a rectangle, but all the
rectangles are stored in graphics card memory (the 128MB requirement).
Once in the graphics card memory, transformations can be applied to
the windows, such as, say, painting the windows on the six sides
of a 3D cube. That would be an example of a transform applied to each
pixmap, before it appears in the viewable frame buffer for the user
to look at.

Other kinds of transformations the running programs might not be
aware of, is if the window is "fogged out" to indicate it doesn't
have focus. The program didn't draw a "fogged out" window, the
display manager applied a transformation to the program's rectangle,
to change the opacity or other visual properties. The GPU did the
transform. Perhaps the programmable shaders implemented the
transform.

The Mac did this with Quartz (managed rectangles in GPU memory),
and the last Mac I bought had about the same graphic requirements
for compositing of windows. In Linux, Compiz is the equivalent
of these kinds of effects, with the inclusion of cheesy effects
such as the "exploding" window when you dismiss a window.

http://news.opensuse.org/wp-content/...on-explode.png

*******

" - It looks like Premium does not support multiple CPUs....
My boxes have 2 CPUs... but I don't know enough to tell for
sure if that's a deal-breaker. Sounds like one on the
surface though..."

Your box may have two cores. Less likely to have two CPU sockets.
They count sockets now.

When WinXP came along, the licensing scheme changed in terms
of CPUs and cores. This page provides a summary for Windows 7.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...m-requirements

"PCs with multi-core processors

All 32-bit versions of Windows 7 can support up to 32 processor cores,
while 64‑bit versions can support up to 256 processor cores.

PCs with multiple processors (CPUs):

Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate allow for two physical processors
Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium will recognize only one physical processor."

The second requirement is the most strict, and is consistent with
the change that came along with WinXP. They started using "sockets"
on the motherboard, for licensing. WinXP Pro allowed the use of
two "sockets" or a dual socket motherboard. You were allowed to
stuff any core count you want in each socket. Windows 7 Pro
appears to allow two sockets as well.

This would be a "2 CPU limit" :-)

ftp://ftp.tyan.com/img_mobo/S8236-IL_2D.jpg

Each of those sockets, can hold a 16 core processor. For a
total of 32 cores. This is an example of a reasonably priced
processor for those sockets.

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/r...zambezi-17.jpg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113036

Paul

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote:


Per below, I guess Basic is out of the question... but whatever I
wind up with I think I'm looking for or maybe a way to suppress
all the Aero BS. I think there's some sort of add-on that does
this.

No suppression needed. You can choose a theme that uses it or a theme
that doesn't. You can switch back and forth easily.

That said, I'd recommend that you take a look at the very least.

--
Tim Slattery

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in
:

But then I'm on to obsessing about the OEM versions - which are a
good hundred bucks less.....


The OEM version is fine. The last time I bought all the parts to build a
computer I also bought an OEM version of Win7. I guess it's tied to this
hardware but that's not an issue as it's the hardware I bought it to use
on.

Back in the day you had to be buying some piece of hardware, I think I
bought a floppy drive to get OEM Win2k, to purchase the OEM version. I
don't know if anybody still does this or not.

My understanding is that OEM versions are tied to the original computer
they are installed/activated on. There's probably ways around that too but
I haven't tried. Otherwise OEM is exactly like any other version.

--

Pat

email: valid would be net

Per Phantom Post:
My understanding is that OEM versions are tied to the original computer
they are installed/activated on.

The zinger would appear tb how MS determines what the "original
computer" is. i.e. maybe if one replaces a hard drive or a
video card, MS' algorithm decides that it is a different
computer.
--
Pete Cresswell

On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:25:29 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Phantom Post:
My understanding is that OEM versions are tied to the original computer
they are installed/activated on.

The zinger would appear tb how MS determines what the "original
computer" is. i.e. maybe if one replaces a hard drive or a
video card, MS' algorithm decides that it is a different
computer.

The bar isn't nearly that low. A completely different motherboard
might trigger a reactivation, but not a video card or hard drive (by
themselves). Regardless, if reactivation is required, it can usually
be done online. In extreme cases, a phone call may be required.

--

Char Jackson

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in
:

The zinger would appear tb how MS determines what the "original
computer" is. i.e. maybe if one replaces a hard drive or a
video card, MS' algorithm decides that it is a different
computer.


I wouldn't worry about that. As I understand it you can change out parts
without having to reactivate. I've swapped hard drives but not much else.
That certainly didn't raise any flags or cause any issues.

--

Pat

email: valid would be net

Phantom Post wrote:
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in
:

The zinger would appear tb how MS determines what the "original
computer" is. i.e. maybe if one replaces a hard drive or a
video card, MS' algorithm decides that it is a different
computer.


I wouldn't worry about that. As I understand it you can change out parts
without having to reactivate. I've swapped hard drives but not much else.
That certainly didn't raise any flags or cause any issues.


There is an example of the thinking that goes into activation, here.
The main value of the article, is to show some of the electronic
identifiers available. The article can't know in detail, what
today's policy is at the Microsoft activation server. They can
change the rules as they see fit.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

Paul

Windows Media Center is included in Win7 Home Premium and higher
versions...i.e. included in Win7 Pro (and Ultimate and Enterprise)

--
....winston
msft mvp mail


"Mortimer" wrote in message
o.uk...

One thing to be aware of is that, certainly for Vista, Professional didn't
include Windows Media Centre which Home Premium did. I *think* the same
distinction is true of Win 7 as well, but I've not tried Win 7 Pro so I
can't be certain.

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...

Per ...winston:
I've seen both. Users with Homegroups and those without. If only one pc,
then Homegroup isn't really a variable.

Has MS moved the furniture around again, and "HomeGroup" is
really what "WorkGroup" is under XP?
--
Pete Cresswell



Homegroup is for use with 2 Windows 7 machines (or Win7 and later Win8
machines) .
It is not applicable to Win7 in combination with prior o/s (XP, Vista).

If Win7 (or Win8) and earlier machines Workgroup remains an available
option.
--
....winston
msft mvp mail

On Wed, 25 Jul 2012 09:57:20 -0400, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per ...winston:
Basic has much less capability. Basic is for minimal/under-powered
hardware.

Is that to say that it is less resource-intensive? If so, it
seems like that might be an argument for using it over "higher"
versions if the missing capabilities are not something the user
needs or wants (e.g. maybe the variable transparency of
windows...)

Can anybody expand on "easier" networking? All I want is tb
able to

According to my copy of "Windows 7 for dummies" (of whom I am one), the
differences a

Starter - for netbooks, with limited hardware capabilities

Home Basic - for developing countries, like Starter but with better graphics,
Internet connection sharing, and able to use capabilities of more
sophisticated laptops

Home Premium - like Home Basic, but also lets you watch and record TV on your
PC, and create DVDs from your camcorder footage

Professional - extra networing features and "similar business tools" (whatever
they are)

Enterprise - large business version, sold in bulk

Ultimate - aimed at the wallets of information technology specialists who must
have the latest and greatest of everything.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk