Is Windows 7 Ultimate worth the extra cost ?

[JordanJP]

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

 

[pparks1]

I would say that the majority of people who paid the extra money for Ultimate because they want "the very best" have been disappointed in their investment. Bitlocker is fine, but I'd say most people don't use it. I've had the enterprise versions on all machines at work and haven't used Bitlocker. For things I want encrypted, I use True Crypt.

The professional version includes Group Policy Editor as well as XP Mode. The primary use of the Group Policy editor is to set a configuration that all users get on the machine. It's mostly used in businesses and such to set corporate policies and ensure that people are in compliance with company standards. It's only used for a couple of small things at the home level and these things can all be controlled via the registry versus the GUI toolset offered by the Group Policy Editor.

I would NOT be using Windows 7 Ultimate at home if that wasn't the version that I received free of charge at the Windows 7 launch events. No way, I would have gone with anything more than Windows 7 Professional myself.

 

[sygnus21]

If you feel like you're going to use those extra features than yeah, if not no. To me that's really a simple answer.

I'll say this, I have Ultimate and the only "extra" feature I use is XP Mode, which you can use with Pro as well. I’ll add that due to a retailer’s "advertising" error I got Ultimate (upgrade) for $160 bucks (US).

Bottom line is do you feel like spending the extra funds on something you may not use????

 

[statistics]

Even when using those extra, they're nowhere near worth the upgrade price Microsoft is asking.

 

[richc46]

Unless you have special requirements, Home Premium should meet most of your needs.

 

[mickey megabyte]

home premium is very well featured - xp mode you can do otherwise, bitlocker's not that great, and as pparks said gpedit is only a gui. there's a huge price difference between the products, for not very much really.

i'm only using evaluating ultimate, as i'm a technet subscriber.

i did pre-order a copy of home premium (before technet), and was completely happy with all its features - i've never used xp mode, bitlocker nor gpedit on this windows yet, so i really don't know why i'm using ultimate at all. i suppose that's what evaluating means.

 

[johnmichael]

Why... Why not...

I moved my system up from Windows 7 Home Premium 32 to Pro 64, which was an easy decision for me. It's just faster, and better on a duel processor system. Since you already have a 7 64 Bit, just see if it's worth upgrading by the extras. Which one is right for you? - Microsoft Windows

You may get back up, and be compatible with some more older programs.
Maybe you can get some freeware to make up for what you really need.

Maybe a memory, or graphics upgrade instead?

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Abhishek Ghosh]

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.

Without using gpedit.msc, most changes / tweaks can be done from registry too; but in very roundabout way.

 

[Jacee]

I've only used gpedit.

 

[Fayla]

If the group policy editor is your only reason for upgrading, then get the Professional upgrade instead. I got a HP laptop that came with x64 Home Premium. I upgraded it to X64 Professional. It has GPEdit and XP mode. Professional will also be supported longer than Ultimate will.

 

[engin33r]

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

I have been burned by it once never again.

 

[Dzomlija]

Professional will also be supported longer than Ultimate will.

Not true. It doesn't matter if you have Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate or any of the other releases of Windows 7. Microsoft will continue to support Windows 7 for as long as the product remains viable.

Which usually counts the two most recent Microsoft operating systems, in this case Vista and 7. You will recall that official support for XP was halted shortly after the release of 7. Using this same logic, one can assume that when Windows 8 is released, support for Vista will be ended, in favour of Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Windows 7 support will likely be ended with the successor of Windows 8....

 

[pparks1]

Not true. It doesn't matter if you have Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate or any of the other releases of Windows 7. Microsoft will continue to support Windows 7 for as long as the product remains viable.

Actually, according to the published Lifecycle information from Microsoft, (Lifecycle Information for Windows Client Products), Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise will have "extended" support available through Jan 14, 2020. The other flavors of Windows 7 (starter, home professional, ultimate) don't have extended support and their mainstream support ends on Jan 13, 2015.

Now, it is possible that MS will adjust the numbers down the road (they did it for XP), but based on what we know as fact today, 2 of the flavors do have a longer committed support date.

 

[wds7]

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 ..)

 

[Dzomlija]

Not true. It doesn't matter if you have Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate or any of the other releases of Windows 7. Microsoft will continue to support Windows 7 for as long as the product remains viable.

Actually, according to the published Lifecycle information from Microsoft, (Lifecycle Information for Windows Client Products), Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise will have "extended" support available through Jan 14, 2020. The other flavors of Windows 7 (starter, home professional, ultimate) don't have extended support and their mainstream support ends on Jan 13, 2015.

Now, it is possible that MS will adjust the numbers down the road (they did it for XP), but based on what we know as fact today, 2 of the flavors do have a longer committed support date.

I stand corrected, regarding the support cycle of the various Windows editions. I suppose it makes sense, since corporations are most likely to use Professional or Enterprise, while home users will use Home Premium or Ultimate.

 

[Bill2]

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.

 

[pparks1]

( 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 ..)

As long as you get your monies worth out of it, that's all that matters. Windows 7 Ultimate is $319 retail from Best Buy and Home Premium is $199. I'm not sure I could justify an extra $120 for Ultimate. But then again, I'm using my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate that I got free from the launch events on my home personal desktop. I'm only using Windows 7 on this one machine as I cannot justify the licensing costs to run it on more than 1 machine at home. Sure, there's Technet...but at $149 that's still more than I want to spend.

 

[James Colbert]

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

 

[QuicksilverMac1]

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.

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

 

[LMiller7]

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.