Windows 7: Differences between basic and ultimate

There are other threads for this but Best Buy (and others) will have free upgrade offers starting June 27 (i think) and the official release date is Oct 22 2009.

Thanks for this information.Its useful to me

Can someone confirm that the "full image" backup is included in the Home Premium edition? I know it's in the Ultimate of course, as I've been using it during the RC, but I want to keep this. I like the idea of the OS doing a full image backup and not just selected files/folders. It's easy to do an image backup to my external HD with a boot disc created by Windows as well and then poof, back on again if the system crashes.

Thanks for any help.

I think that I am in the same boat as a lot of folk - even us semi-geeks. Windows 7 Pro, or Ultimate. When you look at it, we can get the Pro version for half price right now, but not the Ultimate version. And the Ultimate really does not add much more than Bitlocker if I am reading this correctly...
So does anyone have good solid reasons to pay the hundred + more for the Ultimate version?

There is a group of consumers out there that just want their computers to work. They turn on their computer to check email, surf the web, and leave it off 99% of the time. Home Basic or Starter is for them. They can buy low-end boxes with Semprons or Celerons, and a gig of ram, and they'll run just fine. Not everyone is into the eye candy, or has a need for the extras they'd get with Home Premium or Ultimate.
My mom fits into this category. She would get by just fine with a minimalist version of Windows 7 - if I ever get her to upgrade from XP Pro.

from everything I read, there are only 3 levels with Windows 7: Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate... its not like Vista with 6 or 7 different levels.

I am a heavy user but I opted to get the pre-order for Home Premium since I really do not need all the rest that comes with the higher priced versions.

I just looked - the Pre-order is not for FULL versions - just the upgrades?? Thats too bad ...

I believe it's for full versions too. Download - Download + disc ($14) - and just the disc.

I'm all for this pre-order thing. I think Professional will be the way I go. However, I want a full version, not an upgrade. I've browsed around a bit today, and can find nothing on pre-ordering a full install.
Does anyone know if it's going to be like the old days, where you can start with an unpartitioned hard disk, and only put your "old" cd/dvd into the drive long enough to prove you have an original Windows disk? Also, what is the upgrade from - 98? 98SE? ME? 2000? XP? Vista? Do we know yet?
All I can find is the minimal computer specs. According to those, lots of older PCs will be capable of running 7. Of course, I doubt it's advisable to encourage your grandma to upgrade her 1ghz Celeron PC to Windows 7.

as a tech, I have been using OEM and upgrade discs and versions since Win2000 days without a single problem.... some just asked for a previous OS disc, then swap back to the install disc.