Windows 7 Ultimate

[Vendeen]

I've seen post about the differences between the versions:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/0...es-comparison/

But my question is: Is it worth it upgrading from home premium to ultimate? The differences seem minute, and only involving things such as security, but would it be worth it to uninstall everything and put ultimate on my PC?

[Xanthe]

You do not have to uninstall and reinstall to upgrade Win7 versions. The install media is identical between all versions and your activation key determines the feature-base. You can use the Windows Upgrade Anytime feature to buy an upgrade key and unlock any new goodies you might need. Unless you are upgrading from XP or Vista, or are going from 32 to 64-bit this is all you need. As far as Ultimate itself, I believe it is overkill unless you plan on running Windows in a foreign language (Windows itself, not just displaying foreign text). Otherwise Win7 Professional will have all of the same features.

[Isiolia]

Not unless you have specific need for the features.

One thing that isn't listed is the XP virtual machine feature, which is in Professional and Ultimate, but not the Home versions. Keep in mind that it's not really suitable for gaming, so unless you have legacy apps that don't run on 7, it's probably a moot point. You can just as well use something like VirtualBox, it's just not as well integrated.

Most of the features just aren't things that the average user would miss. If Home Premium has been workin' for you, no real need to switch I'd say.