Is Windows 7 Ultimate worth the extra cost ?

There is also a distinct lack of support tools for bitlocker in 7 ult..

I have been burned by it once never again.

By 2015 .. I will move to wds 8.9...or 10 ... Don't need support for 7 any more ...LOL ..

( BTW I've been using wds7 Ultimate 32Bit for awhile now .... i like it better than home/pre ..
though i don't know whether i should move to 64Bit ...maybe after getting more ram ..)

Thats kind of strange. The updates released by MS apply to all editions so it doesnt have to make any special effort for home premium, ultimate and starter.

Here's a comparison chart (if you haven't seen it already...):

Compare Windows - Microsoft Windows

What the chart doesn't show is that the pro and ultimate versions also host RDC's. HP can RDC to other machines, but can't host an RDC session. Of course, there are third party solutions that can be employed. Some say they are beter (such as TeamViewer).

I have HP, Pro and Ultimate on various machines. I could easily get by with Pro and not miss Ultimate at all.

One other feature missing from HP (and not mentioned in this thread) is Backup and Restore. However, there are many better 3rd party apps for that (Acronis TI is what I use).

I can enthusiastically endorse an upgrade to Pro, especially for GPedit and RDC hosting. An Ultimate upgrade would likely be money spent on features you won't need, unless you need to switch between languages. And True crypt is free and very, very secure, so bitlocker becomes moot, IMO.

James

Just to clear up the discussion and provide direction from someone who knows everything about a wide variety of Windows versions at various update levels where I stress test them looking for what breaks Windows and what Windows can survive, I heartily recommend (after having used Ultimate since the RC and getting it in the party pack edition and supplementing it with a full retail copy from Best Buy before Windows 8 was released) that I heartily recommend that if it's your main computer that you pay the toll for Ultimate. As you have Home Premium, a simple Windows Anytime Upgrade (provided you pay attention to whether your laptop came with RTM or SP1 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit from a restoration to factory defaults, as that will determine whether you need the 2009-2010 Windows Anytime Upgrade for 64-bit Home Premium, which upgrades factory RTM installs, or the 2011 to discontinuation of Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade ability version, which upgrades systems with factory SP1.

This is especially a big deal because you have a laptop. If you had a desktop Home Premium can much more often be sufficient. But since you have a laptop, if you use it as your main computer, then you really could use Ultimate, because in addition to the standard list of features, it comes with a fully functional Windows Mobility Center and I know I am late, but no search engine would produce this discussion earlier that I had and in fact I am using a laptop I am configuring a clean install upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit from Vista Home Premium 32-bit. The reason why this is an issue, having to go with 32-bit, is because he's fond of a laptop he bought as a retirement gift in 2007 and he wanted it to remain useful.

I told him that for his needs Windows 7 Ultimate would be a much better fit than Windows 8, because he didn't need the wheel reinvented as he is going on 67 years of age.

I had used my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit desktop (which serves 6 others), my 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate laptop (which is my primary production laptop for when I need a field deployable computer with Ultimate), and my backup Windows 7 laptop, which runs Windows 7 Professional, and very carefully ran down the difference between Windows 7 Ultimate and Home Premium and told him that, most frankly, you never know when you might need one of the Ultimate features, even something as simple as Presentation Mode.

Windows 7 Ultimate is therefore what my Daddy's best friend bought, and he's test driving it by using my similarly configured primary Windows 7 Toshiba laptop providing Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit, and he should be as happy with it as I am.

Windows 7 Ultimate costs a lot for a reason-if you think that business interoperability or presentation mode or Multilanguage support or Windows XP Mode or anything else would help you on your daily driver computer, you have to go for it.

JordanJP said:

When I bought my laptop it came with Home Premium 64. I've been using HP ever since I bought it. I'm someone who likes to have all the best things ! At least I'm that way sometimes... don't get me wrong I don't consider myself materialistic I live comfortably and the possessions I do have I enjoy and it keeps me occupied.

Anyway should I upgrade to Ultimate ? I know the extra features in Ultimate are Bitlocker XP Mode, and 35 languages. The only thing I would probably use is Bitlocker. I know of Truecrypt and find that it works well. But I guess my only reason for really wanting to upgrade is the fact that Ultimate includes gpedit.msc. With gpedit.msc I can tweak every aspect of the OS. Why didn't MS include this feature in all versions of Windows ?

Anyway I'm just debating whether the extra cost is worth it...

Any input and suggestions is appreciated. thanks !


Jordan

All editions of Windows share the same code base so performance and reliability will be the same. The difference is the addef features of the higher editions. Is Ultimate worth the cost? That is a highly subjective question and there is no single right answer for everybody. You have to look at the features and make you own decision. For most home users the answer would be no, unless you are one of those people who must have the best and cost is not a serious issue. For use in a large network the answer will be different. For example, the inability of the home editions to join a domain is usually a deal beaker.