Feedback on using Vista Ultimate

I have a chance to acquire some unused copies of Vista Ultimate from my work. I may only have to pay 50 bucks for the upgrade copies. I was thinking of buying some new desktops without an OS and just load this on there to use for some home servers.

couple of questions:

1. Is it worth it given the advent of Win 7?
2. Since they are upgrade licenses, can they be installed clean like an Upgrade to Win 7 can be currently.

3. What are your thoughts on support for such an OS?

Bill2 said:

If I were in your place I'd grab the offer for the following reasons:

1) Post SP2, vista transformed into a great OS. In fact till recently I had a machine with vista sp2 and barely felt the difference from my win7 machine. True Vista is more demanding of hardware, somewhat heavier on resources plus has less driver support natively than win7. But you are buying new hardware plus drivers for such hardware will be readily available.

2) Upgrade disks can be used to clean install vista via the double install method. See here.

Clean Install From Upgrade Vista - Vista Forums

3) End of extended support for Vista SP2 is April 11, 2017. That gives you 6 years to make use of the cheap licenses.

Windows lifecycle fact sheet - Microsoft Windows

I think you are right. I just got the copy of it now. and free.....

DeaconFrost said:

I wouldn't. For $33 each, you can get a 3-pack of Windows 7 Home Premium licenses. Vista SP2 was a good OS, but unless they were free, I wouldn't bother. Besides, if you want a Home Server...use a server OS. WHS 1.0 can be purchased now, or Vail (WHS 2.0) will be coming out in the next few months as well.

On WHS home much we talking price wise?

I wouldn't spend $50 on Windows Vista if you are planning to run server based stuff. Do you have any experience with server based stuff, or are you attempting to learn about it?

While I used to be very interested in Windows Home Server, since MS has decided to remove the Drive Extender functionality in the upcoming release, I have no interest in this product anymore. As others have said, you could play with something like FreeNas if you are attempting to set up storage space on your home network for files. It's very slick and very easy to use.

Thanks for the feedback guys...I have read about FreeNAS prior to today and I've been strongly considering that as well.


The Vista Ultimate copy I got for free...apparently my System Admin is being generous.

DeaconFrost said:

Three separate companies are working on plug-ins to add this functionality back in. While it might not be as convenient as having the OS support it right away, at least the functionality will be there.

I guess time will tell, but it's still very disappointing that you would have to go to a third party to get this support that was built into the first one. I'm 1/2 inclined to just say, "up yours MS" and simply use/recommend something else.