Windows 7: Don't waste your money on Ultimate

I'll be getting Ultimate so I have all the same features an enterprise edition has. I want to make sure I can test all the functions.

"Bitlocker to Go" is cool to.

Feh - don't waste my time trying to tell me what I should and should not buy. *I* make my own decisions, and if you think Ultimate is a waste of time, I think you're crazier than a loon, especially seeing as you can still buy a TechNet subscription for 261.75 (25% off), which is less than the price of 2 Ultimate purchases, and get more than 2 licenses for each version of W7 that you can download, plus XP, Vista, Office 2007, Office 2003, Windows Home Server, Server 2003 & R2, Server 2008 and R2 (as of this Friday) and so many more products it is ridiculous.

IOW- don't buy W7 at all - get the damn Technet subscription instead. It also gives you 2 free professional support calls Just In Case....

Technet is fine if you are "evaluating" software. Call Microsoft and ask them if the program is designed to be used for installing multiple copies of Windows 7 on home machines without paying for a Windows 7 license. I guarantee they won't tell you to save your money and buy Technet instead because it's cheaper. People use Technet as a loophole since it's pretty much impossible for MS to tell that you are using it long term rather than simply for evaluation.

But you'll be in violation of the license agreement since it's for evaluation and evaluation only--not for business use, not for personal use, not for use on any live system. But since MSFT doesn't bother to enforce this, many people don't care. But there are people who like to be on the up and up, and they'd be wary of that advice.

TechNet, MSDN, Retail, OEM - occupy desktops - saturate marketshare. A bit like magazine distribution. Dozens of different prices, one result. Part of Bill's original goal - a MS OS on every desktop in the world.

Honor thy EULA.

Ultimate allows 4 tuners of each kind in Media Center, I don't think Professional does that.

There are VERY SUBTLE differences like that that may have people wishing they bought Ultimate.