Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate?

Mani · 27 Jul 2009

I am about to install Windows 7 but I am stuck because I don't know which version to install!

Home Premium:

This doesn't have the Bitlocker and Bitlocker to go which I need.

Ultimate:

This has the bloat (business tools etc...) that I don't want! But I would love the Bitlocker and Bitlocker to go.

How much bigger is the install size of the Ultimate compared to Home Premium?

Is Ultimate worth installing considering I only need two tools from it? :)

Thanks,

Mani

Mani · 27 Jul 2009

I am about to throw a coin! Please help!

C0NN3R · 27 Jul 2009

Windows 7 Ultimate. It really doesn't bulk up as much as you think. I have a 140 gb hdd, and I have Windows 7 Ultimate, MS Office, and some other programs installed and I have 91gb free. Its really not as bad as you think. Much smaller than vista.

Dinesh · 27 Jul 2009

i guess ultimate is 3 gb and home pre is 2.55 gb approx. ultimate is always good. go for it.

Hedrush · 27 Jul 2009

Well you install the one your going to buy, its common sense.

Klaw117 · 27 Jul 2009

What about Windows 7 Professional? Does that have BitLocker or not? If not, go for Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows 7 is much less bloated when compared to Vista.

stormy13 · 27 Jul 2009

No,

Compare Windows 7 Editions

DataMan47 · 27 Jul 2009

Why use BitLocker when you can use TrueCrypt? It's free and a lot more flexible than BitLocker (in addition to the full-disk encryption that BitLocker can do, TC has the ability to create encrypted mountable disk images that you can shuttle around as a regular file, even over the Internet). I have MSDN, so I can get Ultimate (I need it for the MUI packs, since they are necessary for testing software on different locales), but even with Ultimate, I'm still not going to use BitLocker because it's simply inferior to TrueCrypt (with the exception perhaps of TPM support, but, um, how many non-corporate computers even have TPM?!).

pparks1 · 27 Jul 2009

I'm going to second the use of TrueCrypt instead. I've been using it for a couple of years and it has been a solid product. And it's 100% free to use and download.

DataMan47 · 27 Jul 2009

BitLocker really is an Enterprise feature: designed to make sure that if a company laptop gets stolen, company data isn't compromised. That's why it has TPM support (TPMs are found almost exclusively on "business" machines) and that's why it supports letting an IT department recover and manage keys.

TrueCrypt, OTOH, is the sort of encryption that a CIA spy might use, with broader, more flexible features, the ability to hide the fact that there even is encrypted data (along with deniability), etc. It offers true hardcore encryption and is more powerful. :)