Which Version is best for gaming

Jonathan_King said:

See this post: Compare Windows 7 Editions

You probably don't need anything higher than Home Premium, in my opinion.

Personally, I use some features that only Professional and above have, like hosting a Remote Desktop session.

I'd say stick to Home Premium, unless you need features it doesn't have.

Jonathan_King said:

There is a difference between XP Mode and compatibility mode for XP.

See this tutorial: Compatibility Mode

Also see here: Download Windows XP Mode

To the OP: I recommend Home Premium.

Well. Just to re-iterate. I agree with Jonathon_King.

For the "Power user", as far as games go I would recommend home premium.

The reason being is that most of us do not use the feature it the higher versions come with, unless your big on networking. No remote desktop support but i am sure that TeamViewer can take care of that.

And as far as XP Compatibility mode goes (I mean, who still plays Quake and Doom? LOL) This link for official Windows XP Compat mode, also given by Jonathon helps evenmore.

At this point let me know if i need to move my question to security.

Not to mention ..... as far as the services that RUN, and the ones that DON'T, in the background of each version of windows, i would believe that it would reduce the amount of exploits that your computer is opened up to. There's even a website that shows you what exploits do what for exact versions of services running!Scary!! Not to mention there are things called FUD's, which stand for Fully Undetectable's.

1 Company (Microsoft). Millions of hackers (Probably More).
Your PC may already be infect by the time the damage happens. Correct me if i'm wrong, as this is just a theory. I know that no computer is fully secure (Duh).

I know that the best antivirus is to not go to darn near ANY website or download darn near ANY file unless you know its safe. But lets admit it, this is WINDOWS! We will be forever playing with things and downloading new programs, etc. So please, as far as the security question goes, keep this one out of it. No offense.

Dont mean to scare anyway, this is just me trying to contribue.

BOTTOM LINE:

It is VERY important to take your time as to what you will be using Windows 7 for.

If speaking of a "pure gaming" box, I would just take WinXP instead. I know that this is a Win7 forums, but lets accept it, Win7 has introduced some nasty incompatibilities to many programs and make it difficult to run a few games.

XP mode is of course a total lie, there is no real "XP mode", it's just a virtual machine with a nice marketing name, and all virtual machines suck at running games (but are great when it comes to serious applications).

Most games will run without problems on Win7, but be prepared to fight with some, specially the older.

My machine pretty much IS a "Pure gaming Box", i could add more RAM and upgrade the graphics card, but thats only because technology moves so fast. Not to mention pretty much ALL games are being made for Win7 and up, now. And if you wanted to play an older game so bad all you would have to do is purchase VMWare or something similar, as long are you comp specs are decent enough. I mean... Purchase XP... Or purchase VMWare? I'd choose VMWare, shoot there might even be a program of that type that works well, for free.

I chose to go with Home Premium. I dont use bit locker, i only speak one language, and i have no use for the Group Policy. I use backup programs which allow me to encrypt..... And for documents i use Microsoft Word with a really good password, which to me is sufficient. I use a highly secured VPN with top of the line security software so i'm not worried about anything. I've tested my security by using sites like "teve Gibson's DNS Nameserver Spoofability Test" and "DNS Nameserver Spoofability Test" etc.

But what about my question on having less services running in Home Premium VS Ultimate? Am i right about reducing the amount of exploits i'm open to with this version?

Thanks in advance for the information and fast responses. Any answer, wrong or right, is good. The point is that you guys try. I really appreciate it.

exitPr0gram said:

And if you wanted to play an older game so bad all you would have to do is purchase VMWare or something similar

VMWare would have the same effect as "XP mode". It's a virtual machine, and most, if not all, virtual machines are very bad at running games. If some gives really serious problem, real XP (or even earlier) may be the only 100% reliable way of playing it. I agree that new games (from 2007/2008 and latter) take that into account and develop considering Vista/7/8-introduced bugs and workaround them.

exitPr0gram said:

But what about my question on having less services running in Home Premium VS Ultimate? Am i right about reducing the amount of exploits i'm open to with this version?

Sounds interesting, but not sure exactly if fewer services necessarily means a more secure system. One thing for sure, programs that listens on ports and accepts connections from internet are particularly vulnerable, as are services that accepts commands from other programs. Those are the things you should get rid of if you're not using them. And for the things you want but are dangerous, firewalls, anti-viruses, low privileged accounts and most important common sense can make a big difference.

The important thing is that, if you don't use something, you can always disable it, no need to have a lesser edition to get rid of that, just with a bit of service tweaking you can improve speed and maybe security.

Alejandro85 said:

exitPr0gram said:

And if you wanted to play an older game so bad all you would have to do is purchase VMWare or something similar

VMWare would have the same effect as "XP mode". It's a virtual machine, and most, if not all, virtual machines are very bad at running games. If some gives really serious problem, real XP (or even earlier) may be the only 100% reliable way of playing it. I agree that new games (from 2007/2008 and latter) take that into account and develop considering Vista/7/8-introduced bugs and workaround them.

exitPr0gram said:

But what about my question on having less services running in Home Premium VS Ultimate? Am i right about reducing the amount of exploits i'm open to with this version?

Sounds interesting, but not sure exactly if fewer services necessarily means a more secure system. One thing for sure, programs that listens on ports and accepts connections from internet are particularly vulnerable, as are services that accepts commands from other programs. Those are the things you should get rid of if you're not using them. And for the things you want but are dangerous, firewalls, anti-viruses, low privileged accounts and most important common sense can make a big difference.

The important thing is that, if you don't use something, you can always disable it, no need to have a lesser edition to get rid of that, just with a bit of service tweaking you can improve speed and maybe security.

I think VMWare should do fine as long as its configured properly (such as giving it enough memory, cpu usage, etc.) and you have decent system specs. I had problems playing Quake II on win7 and used VMWare. Worked fine...

As far as the security vulnerabilities go, msconfig is my friend. i disable all services that i don't use. And comodo firewall helps with the rest of my antiviruses and antimalware.

Thanks again.