ultimate or professional windows 7

[petercook7]

which of the two should i go for pc 4 gig amd 6core with hd ati 4850

[kalniel]

which of the two should i go for pc 4 gig amd 6core with hd ati 4850

Do you want the additional features of Ultimate? Then get ultimate. If not, get professional. Computer spec is irrelevant.

[oolon]

When i bought mine the marginal difference on Ultimate was not much more than Pro. The differences are Bit locker and languages here is the feature table Feature Table. For me pro looks just fine I thought it was missing some of the features that home had however clearly that is not the case! The real question is Home Premium or Pro, do you need domains or XP mode? If not get home premium.

[kalniel]

The real question is Home Premium or Pro, do you need domains or XP mode? If not get home premium.

Or >16gb RAM, backup over network etc. etc. Pro is rather more easily justified than Ultimate IMHO, but I assume the OP knows all that if the choice is just between those two.

[Blade285]

definitely professional, ultimate doesnt have enough features over pro for me to want to pay extra for it (i got ultimate at professional price so it's all good). HP is more than enough for the average user though.

[BobF64]

HP is more than enough for the average user though.

More than enough for almost all home users, tbh.

The Wikipedia Comparison table shows theres not really any significant advantage to Pro over HP, unless you have vast amounts of RAM, theres sufficient 3rd party tools to cover everything else thats missing.

[petercook7]

the price difference between pro and ultimate is £30, next question 32 bit or 64bit? this is where iam stuck, bit worried that xp32bit software will not work well, ie tribes2 the game.

[The_Wheelhouse]

Going on your spec and assuming you don't plan to put any more than 4GB of ram in then 32 bit would be fine, if your worried about compatibility issues.

[Grey M@a]

Going on your spec and assuming you don't plan to put any more than 4GB of ram in then 32 bit would be fine, if your worried about compatibility issues.

I would say go for 64bit as although 32 bit can see 4GB of memory it will only ever use 3.5GB of it due to the limitations of the 32bit memory addressing.

As for Pro or Ultimate. I had that option but as this machine is never connected to a domain and the fact bit locker isn't all that and there are a number of free alternatives out there Home Premium 64bit does all you need Save the money and go for what you will use it for.

I use tribes 2 under 64 bit, essentially most apps that worked in XP 32 bit will work on Win 7 64 bit. All mine have including all the games I play Due to the amount of time Windows 7 has been out there in the wild now, most of the software have Windows 7 versions these days. The only one I have come across so far that still isn't Win7 compatible is InfraRecorder but I replaced that with CDBurnerXP Pro

[petercook7]

I would say go for 64bit as although 32 bit can see 4GB of memory it will only ever use 3.5GB of it due to the limitations of the 32bit memory addressing.

As for Pro or Ultimate. I had that option but as this machine is never connected to a domain and the fact bit locker isn't all that and there are a number of free alternatives out there Home Premium 64bit does all you need Save the money and go for what you will use it for.

I use tribes 2 under 64 bit, essentially most apps that worked in XP 32 bit will work on Win 7 64 bit. All mine have including all the games I play Due to the amount of time Windows 7 has been out there in the wild now, most of the software have Windows 7 versions these days. The only one I have come across so far that still isn't Win7 compatible is InfraRecorder but I replaced that with CDBurnerXP Pro

the most important software that needs to work on my OS is tribes 2, if you say it works, then i'll go for win7 pro 64bit, anyone wanna test it out, by dl tribesnext is free.

[Grey M@a]

the most important software that needs to work on my OS is tribes 2, if you say it works, then i'll go for win7 pro 64bit, anyone wanna test it out, by dl tribesnext is free.

From memory there are a few on here who play it. I play it here and there but I know over at OcUK forums there are loads that play it

From memory if you install it you need to run the update patch which will get rid of the UE error on the game. Mind Tribes 2 would always throw out Unhandled Exceptions for fun xD

The issue with it is that it uses an older OpenGL version which some ATi cards have an issue with. I know this 5870 had a bucket load of them and I had to spend a while editing the settings file for the game.

Mind not seen much in the way of updates for it now and the support forum is looking empty these days.

[oolon]

With my Ultimate retail box version of windows 7, I got both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

[petercook7]

With my Ultimate retail box version of windows 7, I got both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

iam getting the student version pro = £30 and ultimate £48

[jim]

Even if a game didn't work in x64, I'd still get 64-bit.

If I desperately wanted to play one of the very few games that doesn't work in x64, I'd dual-boot XP. No point buying x86 these days.

[oolon]

iam getting the student version pro = £30 and ultimate £48

For that price I would just get the Ultimate and know you had it all. Ok, Ultimate is more than a 50% premium but its £18, a couple of days beer money at best!

EDIT

An important fact missing from this is that Ultimate comes in a black box and as well all know Black is faster particularly than Blue (pro) and Green (home)

[Steve A]

These are the only thing Ult has over Pro

* Direct Access - if you use it with Server 2008

* Branch Cache - Replicates Central Store Info with Branch Locations (remote access etc)

* Bitlocker & Bitlocker Go - Drive ecryption

* AppLocker - Specifys which applications are avalible to x Users reducing the time to modify settings

* Multilingual User Interface Packs -Switch one user interface from one language to another.


Hope this helps