V1S-A1 with Vista Ultimate

I want the most "complete" version of Vista, and I guess that's Vista Ultimate. How do I get this with Ultimate instead of Business?

 

Buy it and install it. A reseller can do that for you as well.

 

Do I need the full retail disc? Or will an upgrade or OEM disc work?

 

Go for the OEM DSP (full version) which needs to be purchased separately. V1S-A1 will have Microsoft Vista Business Edition.

 

Well an upgrade from the version that the computer already has should do fine (since you don't need to pay the full price, which would be pointless given you already paid a lot of money on the Vista that comes with the laptop). It makes no sense paying the full price if there are alternatives.

At least with XP, the "upgrade" disks are actually full installation disks that are only legal in combination with your original license. But otherwise they are fully functional standalone installs.

 

Out of curiosity, What features does Ultimate have that business does not have?. Ultimate has Media centre, Which is only useful if your going to use your laptop as a media centre... Which really isnt what a laptop is designed for, It has windows DVD maker... But there are much better free solutions, You get three crappy games, And windows movie maker has a HD codec, Once again much better free solutions. And bit locker, Which personally I wouldnt use for fear of locking myself out XD.

 

I usually use this list to figure out what the differences between editions is.

I'd be happy with the business edition. Media centre, Movie maker and DVD maker can easily be replaced with better quality commercial products . I've no idea what's in the Ultimate Extras (OMG ULTIMATE SOLITAIRE?!), but I'm pretty confident I can live without them.


On a related topic, does anyone know if it's possible to use the Jelly-bean trick on Asus laptops to get a clean install of Vista?

(Edit: this is the trick I'm talking about. That one's specifically for HP, but some people have managed to apply a similar technique to other OEM editions)

 

There's also Dreamscene, which is rather nice, though it hogs resources like no other.

 

I must admit, having a animated/video wallpaper is rather cool. Not worth-paying-over-£100-to-upgrade-cool, but cool nonetheless .

 

there are free third party programs that do the same thing and dont kill your cpu and battery life.

 

So if I get the OEM DSP, I can do a clean install too, right?

 

OEM DSP requires you to do a clean install, it's not an upgrade.

 

I think you can add animated wallpapers to your desktop with VLC player if i am not mistaken.

 

what about home premium? does vista business have everything that home premium have and a bit more? cause i was thinking of taking business off to put home premium on... but if its better, i'll just keep it on

 

Once again, this page is helpful to see most differences between editions.
(Admittedly that page is quite old now - anyone know of any other notable differences?)

Home premium has (but business does not):
Media Center
Windows Movie Maker
Windows DVD Maker

Business has (but home premium does not):
Full remote desktop support
Volume Shadow Copy
Offline Files/Folders
IIS Web Server
Rights Management Services
Fax and Scan
(the 64bit version can also support more RAM [16GB vs 128GB], but this is pretty insignificant for the standard user)


The way I see it, home premium gives you three, 'frilly' and easily replaceable features. Business's features, however, are less superficial. They offer some real functionality. They're probably less replacable too (third-party shadow copy? eww). Of course, some of the features won't see much use in a home environment, but if my laptop came with Business I'd certainly see Home Premium as a downgrade.

 

Did you consider register to Microsoft as a develper (FREE) then subscribe MSDN Action Pack ( should be $300-$400US ) which give you the whole night yard of Microsoft stuff ( Vista, XP, Office 2007, 2003R2 ............)?