Windows 7: Netbook: Windows 7 HP or Pro?

Hi! I'm hoping this is the right sub-forum for this.



My girlfriend, a student planning on taking advantage of the student deal going on right now, is going to be getting a new netbook. Unfortunately, Windows 7 Starter is sort of lacking in some features and she wants to upgrade.

Since they're both $30, what it comes down to is this:

Should she get Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Pro? It's going to be on a netbook, so I'm thinking HP is the way to go, but if Pro doesn't require any additional resources, it might work as well.

Also, this will sound very noob-tastic, but: Would it be easier on the netbook to install the 32-bit version of the OS, or does it not matter (32 vs 64 in terms of system resources)?

Thanks for lending a hand.

Just go with Professional. Get all the extra goodies even tho you don't need them. :P You are going to most likely have to use the 32bit version. I've not seen many...or any...netbooks for 64bit.

Yup, agreed... I think there are no 64bit supporting netbooks. (from what i know)

Yeah I agree, Pro 32-bit is probably the way to go. I haven't noticed any difference in resource usage between home premium and pro. Granted my computer isn't exactly a netbook, and the kinds of usage differences you would see on a netbook are minimal on my pc, but still. You can always disable feature in the OS to make it run better. I know for fact that Aero takes alot of resources, so that may be one thing you would want to disable.

No, Aero does not take a lot of resources. Aero uses the most underutilized resource of the entire working life of the computer. The Graphics card. Turning off Aero means you are pushing ALL the GUI work to the CPU. You WANT a computer that can run Aero, and you WANT to turn it on if you care about performance.

Finally someone else who posted the same thing that I used to speak alot about...

People really think that Aero kills the CPU thus hindering performance...

Well I havent noticed any difference in resource usage with Aero on or off.. Like I said, it might make more of a difference on a Netbook. Perhaps I was wrong about turning it off, I apologize. I have turned it off and have not noticed any increase or decrease in CPU, or GPU usage. The only reason I suspected it would use more reasources was because of the fact that windows will turn it off if your video card does not score high enough on the Windows Experience Index rating test. You can still turn it on, but they dont recommend it.

Would that mean that on Win 7 Starter Edition, all of the GUI is pushed to the CPU by default? There is no Aero option on there, so I would assume not. I just want to clarify.

I had an old Dell Deminsion 8100 stocked with the lowest end P4 1.5 GHz, just shy over 512 MB of RAM, ATI Radeon 9700 (might have been Pro). This thing ran Windows XP at dog slow speeds. For kicks I threw Vista (pre-SP1) on it. To my surprise Aero was supported. That alone made it a lot more responsive then XP!

Vista ran no slower then XP, but it was able to be a lot more responsive because the CPU was freed up for extra work. All thanks to Aero.

Yes on Windows Starter, since it has no Aero abilities it is all pushed to the CPU.