Windows 7 Home, Pro or Ultimate

[Roger Rosales]

Hello Fellow Vegas Users!

I'm in the process of upgrading my laptop and I will be upgrading from Vista 32bit to Windows 7 64bit. My question is, can I go with the Home Premium of Windows 7 64 to save money or do the Pro or Ultumate versions offer features that I will need to run Vegas to its full potential?

Currently, I'm using Vegas 9 but plan on upgrading to Vegas 10 soon.

Basicly, can I skimp out on all the business features of pro and ultimate and just go with Home Premium? If not, why would I need Pro or Ultimate to take full advantage of Vegas 9/10?

Thanks!

Current Specs:

Toshiba Satellite P205D-S7802
AMD Turion64 1.97GHz (dual core 64bit ready)
2gb if ram (upgrading to 4gb)
150gb 5400rpm HDD (upgrading to 500gb 7200rpm)
ATI Radeon X1200 with 128mb of dedicated video memory (831mb total graphics memory - includes 703mb of shared video memory)

Overall, it's a good laptop for some offline editing maybe even a little online, but it's primary purpose will be offline edits.

Any suggestions are welcome! I wish I could upgrade the graphics card but I can't and I don't have the money to shell out for another laptop with 512mb+ of dedicated video memory...Pretty much stuck with what I currently have for the moment. I'm just trying to spice this one up as much as possible for the time being.

[Pete Bauer]

I'm not a Vegas user so can't comment on its specific needs, but a couple of points on Win 7 from the summary table at the bottom of this page:

Windows 7 editions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Home Premium:
- can only use up to 16GB of RAM (for a laptop that probably isn't a concern)
- doesn't support dynamic disks (if that matters to you; probably not for a laptop)

The good news is if you decide to go with Home Premium and then later decide you'd like to upgrade, you just pay for the upgrade and install in-place. Every installation of Win 7 contains the ability to upgrade all the way to Ultimate.

[Craig Longman]

I use Home Premium 64, and it runs fine, VMS, Pro 10-32 and Pro 10-64.

Despite Home Premium not having the XP compatibility capabilities of the higher versions, I've never had a problem with anything I've run, 32 or 64 bit.

It's mostly used for business, programming and video so it stays fairly clean, and I guess I don't use a wide range of applications.

My daughter plays a few games, and lots of these online flash games with no problems.

Personally, I really like Win7, and this is the first version of windows I've actually liked since WfW 3.11 =)

[Roger Rosales]

Thanks for the responses!

Pete,

a quick search on Dynamic Disk tells me that I don't think I really need that option just yet. It's mostly for RAID-5 configurations so it seems and things of that nature, which i'm not doing on either my laptop or desktop.

As for the ram, 16GB is more than plenty for my needs at the moment, even then my laptop maxes out at 4gb so it's no issue at all!

Craig,

WFW 3.11 is quite the dino!

The lack of XP Compatibility is of slight concern to me...I'm not sure how it would affect the range of freeware (VirtualDub, TMPGEnc, AVIsynth, etc) available that I like to use in my workflow.

Now i'm wondering if I should go with Pro just to have the XP compatibility mode available...hhmm...thanks for the info guys!

[Adam Stanislav]

I am rebuilding my computer with an i7 and 64-bit Windows 7. You definitely want at least the professional version. I was going to order just that from amazon.com and noticed they were offering the ultimate version for just some $5 more, so that is what I ordered. Yesterday I was walking through a local OfficeMax and noticed they had the ultimate version for even less, but amazon has already shipped mine.

The professional version supports considerably more RAM than the home version. The ultimate version has only two things that the professional version does not: (1) Drive encryption, and (2) support for multiple languages. So, if the price difference is big, choose the professional version. If it is just a few dollars, as happened to me, pick the ultimate version.

[Craig Longman]

I've run Virtual Dub on here, without a problem.

The XP compatibility mode is an actual little VMWare type virtual machine environment that "boots" XP. That's not to say that Home can run apps that XP does. I'm not even sure what apps have problems, but if it's a concern, do a few googles on the apps you're thinking about with Win7 and see. I've not had any problems with any app yet. Although, as I said, this is a very business (well, OK, the occasional game =) oriented machine.

And more than 16GB? I know it's been said before, but 16GB is a huge amount. And if you're unsure, as pointed out, you can upgrade the OS. It's expensive, but getting a 3x4GB triple channel and holding the other bank(s) for another 12GB might be feasible, but honestly, I think the ROI would be better spent on other things, and stick with a dual channel, and 2 of 2x2GB for 8GB, then spend the rest on other things that make stuff go fast.

I mean, most of us were manging most of the time with a 32bit app that only had 2GB (perhaps 3GB) available. And most of the time, it was just fine, suddenly giving it 8GB is huge. I'm not too up on prices, but I think you need to go with 2x4GB or triple channel to get >8GB on an MB, and it gets (comparatively) much more expensive, and money likely better spent on drives/arrays/CPUs/GPUs/PSUs.

My 2 (more) cents at least.

[Frederic Baumann]

2 months ago I bought a brand new PC with Windows 7 Home Premium, an i7/950 and 4 GB RAM. The main usage of it is video editing with Vegas. I am fully satisfied of this OS version, and all the surrounding software I used to work with on XP works perfectly well (including DivX, Cineform, m4ng, MediaInfo, ...).

I can even do advanced usage of Vegas, like developing plug-ins, scripts and extensions, and all is working fine for me.

The only missing feature that could have helped is the ability to have backups through the network (Home Premium manages backups, but not through the network as far as I remember). But this is not a pain indeed because I was using another software for that before (on XP), and it still works on 7 H.P.

So I would definitely go for the Home Premium edition.

Hope this helps,
Frédéric :-)

[Jeff Harper]

Roger, have you considered just buying a new laptop that already comes with windows 7? I don't know. seems like a waste to put it on an old machine. A new laptop can be had for under $500 or even less:

Micro Center - eMachines eME527-2537 Laptop Computer - Black LX.NAF02.002

[James Harring]

I concur you should consider a replacement laptop. The Turion is a bit of a lightweight CPU for graphics and with Black Friday coming up, should be some good deals. I suggest any of the Core i5 and i7 series. Core i3 if you can't afford the better CPU. Also, look at the corporate or business systems.

Since you cannot swap cpu's, then scrimp on ram or other commodity components initially and get the better CPU and other propriatary parts, (such as the custom fit dvd burner) with the pc. Buy more ram once your budget allows. Also get 7200 rpm hard drive, or again plan on replacing it.

Also, in the matter of x32 vs x64 Windows (any version), most software runs fine no matter what version you choose. HOWEVER most incompatibilities you will encounter with x64 Windows occurs in device drivers for peripherals such as host based printers, scanners, etc. So be sure to go to the manufacturer's website to confrim compatibility (and pull down the compatible driver), or you may find you'll go over budget with unexpected peripheral replacements.

In a pinch, Vista x64 drivers seem to work if the Win7 x64 version is not available. But it's generally the exception to have a 32-bit device driver work on a 64-bit system. Regardless, go with 64-bit if possible for future proofing.

Without knowing your circumstance, I can't be specific, but I generally recommend the Pro version.

[David Stoneburner]

I've only ran with one problem so far running Win 7 and that was device driver for my legacy scanner. I have pro so I just run it in XP mode and use Gimp to do the scanning, then save the file and do all my editing in PS in 7. I still think the Home Premium would be fine. It doesn't have XP mode, but you could run the Sun virtual machine, which is free and should run just like the XP mode. You then could run XP and/or Linux. Just another way to skin the cat.