Is it worth the upgrade to (or reinstall of) Vista Ultimate?

Hi,
Newbie here. Need yer help, just got hold of the HP Pavilion DV6799ea (from John Lewis - many thanks to the guy who posted that it was still available! - long story).

I've got the Vista Home Premium installed but I have access to Vista Ultimate. I would like to know if there's any solid benefit to installing Ultimate over Home?

I also know there are loadsa recommendations to perform a clean install but I am still hesitant. I turned the new laptop on for the first time yesterday but only performed the setup and left everything else alone while I pondered.

Can I start using it while I await my Vista Ultimate disc?

What exactly are the bloatware programs on the laptop? All I can see so far is just the HP Total care advisor or something like that - should that be removed?

What happens to the recovery partition if I do upgrade?

Is it worth moving up to Vista Ultimate and wouldn't I lose functionality and drivers if I mess it up? BTW, someone said I can't upgrade to Ultimate since Home Premium came pre-installed, is that true?

Sorry for all the questions!

Thanks a lot.

HL

 

First, YES, its worth to go for Vista Ultimate.. and if you are getting a disc and have access to it, for sure YES.. Go For It. Its really nice.

And yes, probably you could do a clean install.. or if you are lazy / hesitant, follow the guide here (Sticky by Les in Windows OS forum) and it should help your system along a lot... You could always tweak your Vista settings around and get it to be like what you want.. Lots of threads here as well as if you search in google..

I dont know about the limitations of upgrading from Home Premium to Ultimate... (really??) may be the experts can help u out here...

(Where are you getting the Ultimate Disc from?)

 

Hi Fonduekid,

Getting the disc from Uni.

I saw a post where it said it wasn't possible to install Ultimate on a machine that has Home Premium - it was a sticky on the clean install thread.

Thanks, just nervous I guess. My old (Acer) laptop just died (probably fried by the heat) - I hope HPs don't do the same.

 

BUMP!

Sorry!

 

Ah really? I couldn't find any... but I am looking around now.

Meanwhile, I have seen many people upgrade to Vista Ultimate... Are you sure the upgrade wasn't possible just like that or because of something to do with licenses and such???

 

What? Why wouldn't it be possible to install Ultimate on a machine that had Home Premium installed on it? Ludicrous I say

And yes, you'll want to do a clean install. No, it's really not that difficult. Just follow the sticky like fonduekid said. And yes, Ultimate > Home Premium.

 

Ah yes, I read around quickly here on NBR, and I understand that you could do a clean install with the ultimate disc... it should be fine, as far as I understood. But you may want to wait a bit for the experts to come in here with their views

 

Are they 32-bit? Or 64-bit? Or one of each?

Anyway, vs. Home Premium, Ultimate will add Complete PC Backup, Previous Versions, Remote Desktop Server, Fax and Scan tools, Dreamscene, some poker game, some encryption stuff. There's more, but those are the highlights IMO.

As long as they're the same bits (32- or 64-bit) and the same service pack level, you should be able to do an in-place upgrade... but if Home Prem. came preinstalled then I recommend doing a clean install anyway... I've heard HP puts a lot of bloatware on the system.

 

Thanks everyone!

I have cross-checked my facts and what I have access to is Windows Vista Business Upgrade on CD/DVD.

Even the Vista Ultimate i thought I had access to is an upgrade DVD + Licence costing around £85!

As you can imagine, I am now very confused and wondering if I am now just stuck with the original Home Premium and bloatware.

I've read through the forum and still confused as to whether I can even do a clean install as I don't have a disc! My HP laptop didn't come with any discs.

My hopes have been cruelly dashed to the ground!

What are my options please?

 

Just checked,

My laptop came installed with Vista Home Premium 32-bit, does that change anything?

Cheers.

 

Hmmm....

Looking at the Microsoft Vista comparison on their website, it appears that Vista Business is not better than Vista Home Premium.

Unless I am mistaken, there is no benefit to upgrading to Business (with regards to features).

Does this mean that there is no need to re-install Vista?

Am I wrong/mistaken?

H-L

 

If you are questioning it, you probably do not need to upgrade to _Vista Business. Just stick with _Home Premium; I'm sure it'll do you fine.