Difference between Vistas? Help! Home Premium, Business, Ultimate

It's hard for me to find explanations of the differences, besides price.

Do some function better, have less errors? Which would you recommend to a friend? I am doing some work, some gaming, standard fare.

Which one should I buy and why?

 

Performance wise they're all the same. The less bloated version is Business, the one that has the most features is Ultimate (but definitely not more than a few compared to Home Premium) and the one that will suit most of the people is Home Premium (which I'd buy).

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

 

Here's a more detailed comparison:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_editions_final.asp

Anyway I think Premium is the best choice for most home users, and Business for most business users. Choose Basic if you're strapped for cash; Ultimate if you have to have the best of everything regardless of price, or if you need both the advanced multimedia features and the advanced business features.

 

Just don't get Basic. Not worth it. Business has worked very well for me, except I can't get the Microsoft games to work, even after making sure they were enabled in the Windows Features...

But I recommend either Business or Home Premium. Your choice.

 

yuio... ur signature is good... even i support AMD... they spend less on advertising & hence are able to sell Cheaper..

For OP: Microsoft website clearly lists which one should u buy..

Home Premium is the best Bet for u.... its not VERY expensive & has all the Innovative Features of Vista (Did I just say innovative?)

 

I don't see what's wrong with Basic, if you aren't that excited about the Aero interface. Switch the theme to Standard and it still looks nicer than XP... and comes with more programs and features than XP Home did. But still if you have an extra $30 or whatever I'd go for Premium.

By the way, I have Business myself, and the games all work fine for me once I enabled them in the Windows Features thing... so I don't know what's wrong on your setup, Pixelot.

 

Basic is the Best actually... it offers best of XP & Vista.. its better for Gamers as NO AERO ... Although as i mentioned..various SW's can be used to make it Better than AERO with much less System Hog.. See Here

 

Thanks for the input, Swarmer. I don't know, either. I have tried re-installing, but even then the folders were added to the Program Files folder, but no games. I get an error message that not all components were successfully installed.
I never use Aero myself. But I gather that Vista Basic isn't only lacking the Aero interface. Don't expect me to go into detail, but people whose opinions on computers and software I value have stated that Basic is, as Microsoft's website suggests, only for Basic tasks/connectivity/networking/gaming/etc.

 

I have read that too, pixelot.

And really, what's a few extra bucks to upgrade. Sounds like Premium is my option.

 

I think that only matters if your hardware is being strained anyway... I'm running Vista on my laptop with Aero on playing games like Crysis and have absolutely no programs... So, meh. Then again, I'm making the move to full-time Ubuntu user anyway

 

I had the same problem, the games have nothing to do with Vista Busines, it's Sony's version of Vista Business that is stripped off the games! Just install a clean version of Vista Business and see how they'll work as soon as you add them from the Windows Features