Do I need ultimate?

Ok... so I have an upgrade disk here for Win7 Ultimate. I currently have Win7 Home Premium installed. It's a Chinese upgrade (as I live in Taiwan and the shops were ALL being stubborn and refusing to hunt down an English version for me) versus installed English - so it will be a clean install.

So before I go ahead and do this. Do I NEED Win7U? My primary concern was Windows XP mode. I'd read that Win7HP does not have this (and it doesn't)... but I noted it DOES have Vista mode. So I am beginning to question if I really need Ultimate and the bother of going through and reinstalling everything.

Regular software I use:
Second Life
Firefox (pass on IE)
DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) - this was crashing on W7U until I stuck it in XP mode. Never thought to try Vista mode.
Photoshop (CS4, am looking at upgrading to CS5 if it's worth it)

I don't really have any need for BitLocker or any of those things. It's only the XP mode that bothered me.

 

You can choose what language you want to use in Ultimate , see comparison chart below.

 

Yes, I am aware of this. Apparently Home Premium CAN, too. I have Chinese W7U running at home with the English interface... but I am more concerned about.. do I NEED Win XP Compatibility Mode? I know DDO was refusing to run beyond the launcher screen till I put it in XP mode, and now that I know HP has Vista compatibility, I will be testing that tonight... but I see a lot of software marked on my PC as 32 bit... how essential is XP mode for 32 bit software? I know that Firefox was playing up in XP mode (I put it in by default as it is 32 bit).

(Also my HP is in English, which is my native language).

 

Don't know about Windows 7 Starter, but all other versions of Windows 7 have Compatibility Mode. Keep in mind that Compatibility Mode is something entirely different than Windows XP Mode, which you also mentioned.

You don't say whether you are using Win7x32 or Win7x64, but because you are concerned about 32-bit software, I presume you are using x64. Win7x64 can run 32-bit and 64-bit software just fine. What makes the difference is how well the software was written. In those few cases, you may need to use Compatibility Mode. Otherwise, 32-bit software should work find as is.

As far as I'm aware, Firefox should have installed in the x86 directory and shouldn't have needed to be run in Compatibility Mode.

 

If you just want to run software in win xp, just install a free virtualisation software like virtualbox and install xp on it, it's the same thing as the xp mode, except that the xp mode is just a xp on a microsoft made virtualpc.

 

Tbh very few people need Ultimate; even Corporate environments do fine with Professional. Direct Access, BitLocker and language packs are hardly much incentive to upgrade and re-do everything for the majority of users.

From what I can see, you don't really seem to need XP mode; if you did, you wouldn't have to ask

 

Ultimate is a $20 idiot fee. It used to be that MS said Ultimate had 'performance enhancements' but they've even done away with that since vista.

All versions of 7 have a compatibility mode, pro and ultimate have a revised XP mode that further and more accurately emulates windows XP for those difficult programs. Basically any application I had issues with running in compatibility mode with vista are done away with the XP mode in 7. bit locker is an absolute resource HOG, and in laptops you're going to see some pretty noticeable performance hits.

 

I use bitlocker. That made it worth it for me.

YMMV.

 

Thanks all. I've read what you all suggested and have gone ahead and tested the two programs that were having issues with Win7 64bit... Namely SL and DDO. They both seem to work fine with Vista compatibility, so I think I will find someone to sell my Ultimate update (never used) to. ^_^

 

Seems that you got all other things already sorted out.

In general: that key you have in the Chinese package will also work on English disc. There's still the problem of finding the install media (but it can be downloaded depending on your local laws).