Vista Ultimate

I don't want to settle for vista business when I upgrade so I am going to buy an OEM edition of viste ultimate. Will I have any trouble getting drivers and updating the BIOS on an ASUS A8JS?

 

The simple answer is that it won't be as easy as just popping in the CD and doing an install. If I were you, I'd have all the drivers I need picked out and maybe burned to a CD before I began doing the install. Most of them can be found in a sticky at the top of this forum but you'll have to sort them out and figure out which yo need and which you don't. If these aren't steps you're comfortable with, maybe it's not yet time for you to upgrade. Let us know how it goes

~ Brett

 

No.

But when you mean "settle", I don't know when you bought it, but if you bought it while being eligible for a free upgrade, i'd certainly take the free upgrade to business if I were you.

Ultimate does have some cool features which I'm enjoying as we speak..... but on a 14" screen, are you really going to benefit from media center? I don't know... I'm just saying that if you are getting a free upgrade (which I don't know if you are, but you should be), to spend more money to get ultimate, I'm just not sure I would tell you it's worth it.

You may also be able to upgrade via microsoft's "anytime upgrade" in the control panel... that might be an option to look into - again, if you're eligible for the free business upgrade.

Now... the retail versions come with 32 and 64bit versions of the OS in their package... the OEM copies come with either 32 or 64bit... if you get the 64bit version now I'll tell you that you'll have plenty of issues with drivers for many, many months to come.

 

If I recall correctly, the Ultimate upgrade from Business (using the Windows Anytime Upgrade) is $139. The OEM disc at newegg is $199. It might be more cost effective to get your free disc and doing the Anytime Upgrade. That's the route I was planning to go.

Of course the nice thing about the OEM Ultimate disc is that you can boot off of it for a true "clean" install. Let us know what you do and how it goes.

 

I know retail wise the ultimate version is $400, but I'd consider for someone that is looking to maybe upgrade but won't be getting the free upgrade discs, that you consider getting the retail version for future use... Install the 32bit version now and then perhaps installed the 64bit version down the road if you ever wanted to go that route.

 

I have been running Vista Ultimate for a week now, and although I did not run the Business version I think that if I had to choose a version it would be the Business version and not Ultimate. Ultimate just seems too expensive to justify the price, and the features are not really that better.

Or if you require Media Center functionality then go for Home Premium. But my opinion is that unless you hook the notebook up to a TV and get a remote control and perhaps an external tuner, you don't really need media center.

If you can get the free upgrade to Business, why not take that and test it out. If you really require more, you can do the anytime upgrade, which is even cheaper than going for the OEM version, as pointed out by Payback.

On the note of the driver issues, I really had no trouble installing Vista on a V1JP. Some drivers were not found by default, but they can be comfortable downlaoded after the install or some might even be available from Windows Update. But of course it does not hurt to have them ready on another partition. The entires process was easy and trouble free for me.

 

the A8JS is shipping with Vista in australia - ASUS seem to have a full set of drivers and a Vista BIOS update for the A8JS on their website