W7 - Premium vs Professional

Gudge · 23 Sep 2010 at 20:03

Hi All,

Just firing out a quick question which has probably been answered a million times before but here goes:

**What are the real advantages of Windows 7 Professional over Windows 7 Premium(odd name fore their bog standard product!)?**

I'm leaning towards Professional due to the XP emulator which could be useful as I have been running XP for a number of years now and have some games & software from that OS (and earlier! anyone else remember Mech Commander 2?) and am concerned that I will not be able to run this on the premium version let alone without the XP emulator.

Any other significant differences for home user?

If there are any routes around this let me know as saving £50 notes between the versions is always welcome!

Cheers All

Gudge

Kennysevenfold · 23 Sep 2010 at 21:14

If you have to ask, get premium. general rule of thumb mate

RJC · 23 Sep 2010 at 21:23

Comparison chart below:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

64bit Home Premium will be fine

Kennysevenfold · 23 Sep 2010 at 21:27

RJC said:
Comparison chart below:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

64bit Home Premium will be fine

He know's his stuff

lol

Gudge · 23 Sep 2010 at 22:18

Kennysevenfold said:
He know's his stuff lol

So I see - RJC has been most helpful to me today!

bledd · 23 Sep 2010 at 23:10

For me, the only things that stand out are..

Remote desktop
Domain joining

BloodyL · 23 Sep 2010 at 23:26

Go for Premium and use one of the many free virtualisation packages that are out there for creating the Mech Com 2 install.

SiriusB · 23 Sep 2010 at 23:55

Gudge said:
Windows 7 Premium(odd name fore their bog standard product!)?

It isn't though. There are Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic, which are both "below" Home Premium.

However, Home Premium is the "bog standard" product you can buy via Retail.

Gudge · 24 Sep 2010 at 00:07

Thanks BloodyL - do you have any links that I can look at ?

Well I expect that explains it on the premium side, as I have only been looking at Retail versions, OEM just doesn't cut it for a new build in my eyes, so that probably did nothing for my misconceptions.
Cheers SiriusB

SiriusB · 24 Sep 2010 at 00:11

OEM is pointless since the license is too restrictive and the savings just aren't worth it anymore, since Retails is only a few quid more expensive.

Plus it is technically meant only for a computer you intend to sell, though MS does not enforce this in any way at all!

BloodyL · 24 Sep 2010 at 07:52

Gudge said:
Thanks BloodyL - do you have any links that I can look at ?

The two most popular are:

VirtualBox, this is the VM app I prefer.
VMWare Player

I found VirtualBox better than VMWare Player, and VMWare Player better than Win7 Pro's XP Mode.

BloodyL · 24 Sep 2010 at 07:56

Ahh, just realised something, you get a licensed install of XP 32bit included with Win7's XP mode, whereas you will need to provide a valid licensed copy of XP for the virtualisation software to work on.

Tricky.

DJDaz · 24 Sep 2010 at 08:58

Providing the XP he's currently using is retail he can use that in the VM

iviv · 24 Sep 2010 at 09:16

However, most games will not be able to run on XP mode as the graphics card it emulates is enough to display an image, but I doubt its capable of anything more than that.

Gudge · 24 Sep 2010 at 11:27

iviv said:
However, most games will not be able to run on XP mode as the graphics card it emulates is enough to display an image, but I doubt its capable of anything more than that.

Not trying to sound like too much of a dunce but are you saying that any new graphics card will be too powerful for the xp emulator?

I have been running an OEM copy of XP on my old machine (Siemens Fujitsu Scaleo P - can't begin to tell you how much I regret buying that pile of S***) Would the graphics card in the new build* will have a Radeon 5770 level card in it, which will be what I will be running the Windows 7 on. This means that the new build will only have the W7 loaded onto it and no previous history of XP.
If that makes sense....

bledd · 24 Sep 2010 at 12:18

Virtual installs aren't suited for any gaming

SiriusB · 24 Sep 2010 at 13:15

Gudge said:
Not trying to sound like too much of a dunce but are you saying that any new graphics card will be too powerful for the xp emulator?

A virtual machine is just what the name implies. All the hardware is virtualized. It doesn't run directly on your hardware. So while you may have a 5770, the VM will be using something entirely different. Like a Voodoo 3D [not really, but you get the idea!

]. The graphics capability of most VMs is usually enough to display the desktop and programs of the guest OS. Anything more is not going to happen.

There is VM software that does support much better graphics, but you would expect to pay a good chunk of money for that.

I have been running an OEM copy of XP on my old machine (Siemens Fujitsu Scaleo P - can't begin to tell you how much I regret buying that pile of S***) Would the graphics card in the new build* will have a Radeon 5770 level card in it, which will be what I will be running the Windows 7 on. This means that the new build will only have the W7 loaded onto it and no previous history of XP.
If that makes sense....

That makes absolutely zero sense.

I can tell you that you are not able to use that OEM copy of XP anywhere else, not even in a VM.