AL RI Part I MA TE Surviving Setup Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition D Chapter 2: Installing or Upgrading to Windows 7 CO PY RI GH TE Chapter 3: Hardware and Software Compatibility
Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition Chapter 1 In This Chapter Basic differences between the Windows 7 product editions Which Windows 7 product editions you can safely avoid Differences between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 Determining the best Windows 7 for you Choosing between the home and business versions Choosing between Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional Features available in all Windows 7 versions Choosing Windows 7 Ultimate
22 Part I: Surviving Setup I f you haven’t purchased Windows 7 yet—or you’d like to know whether or not it’s worth upgrading from the version you do have to a more capable version—this chapter is for you. Here, we’ll explain the differences between the many Windows 7 product editions and help you pick the version that makes the most sense for you.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 23 You may occasionally hear Windows 7’s product editions referred to as SKUs. This term stands for stock keeping unit. While we typically use the more common terms product edition, version, and product versions throughout this book instead, these terms are all pretty much interchangeable. Following is a list of the major Windows XP versions that Microsoft shipped between 2001 and 2006.
24 Part I: Surviving Setup Windows Vista Ultimate—which was originally available only with select new PCs from Dell and, eventually, at retail—and you’ve got 18. Or something.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 25 which features are available in which editions and choose the one that’s right for you based on your needs. Windows 7 Product Editions: Only a Little Bit Simpler As with Windows Vista, Windows 7 will ship in many different product editions. On the surface, this seems confusing—just as confusing, in fact, as the Vista product line. But this time, Microsoft made a few commonsense changes to the product lineup that should make things easier on most people.
26 Part I: Surviving Setup Why not just have one or two product editions, as we did back when Windows XP first shipped? Microsoft says that it has over one billion Windows users worldwide and that their needs are diverse and cannot all be met with a single product. So it has instead moved to a “Russian nesting doll” model, where as you increment up the list of Windows 7 product editions, features or capabilities are simply adopted from the previous editions.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 27 Here’s how. Windows 7 Home Basic You don’t need or want Windows 7 Home Basic. But it’s even simpler than that: you can’t get it anyway. That’s because Windows 7 Home Basic is available only with new PCs in emerging markets. You can’t get it in the U.S., Europe, or any other developed area. So unless you’re buying a PC in one of the few countries in which you can acquire Windows 7 Home Basic, you probably won’t hear much more about this product.
28 Part I: Surviving Setup The biggest reason to go 64-bit is RAM: after all, 64-bit versions of Windows 7 can access far more RAM than 32-bit versions (up to 192GB, depending on which version of Windows 7 you’re talking about, compared to less than 4GB of RAM in 32-bit versions). Folks, with one minor exception, it’s time to say good-bye to 32-bit versions of Windows. So with Windows 7, almost universally, we recommend that you seek out 64-bit (x64) versions instead.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 29 Table 1-1: User Interface Features Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Windows Basic UI Yes Yes Yes Yes Windows Aero UI — Yes Yes Yes Windows Aero Glass effects — Yes Yes Yes Aero Peek — Yes Yes Yes Aero Snaps Yes Yes Yes Yes Aero Shake — Yes Yes Yes Aero Background — Yes Yes Yes Windows Flip Yes Yes Yes Yes Windows Flip 3D — Yes Yes Yes Live Taskbar Previews — Yes Yes Yes Live Prev
30 Part I: Surviving Setup Table 1-3: Performance Features Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Windows ReadyDrive Yes Yes Yes Yes Windows ReadyBoost Yes Yes Yes Yes SuperFetch Yes Yes Yes Yes 64-bit processor support Yes Yes Yes Yes Physical processor support 1 2 2 2 Processor core support Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Max RAM (32-bit) 4GB 4GB 4GB 4GB Max RAM (64-bit) 8GB 16GB 192GB 192GB Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate
31 Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition Table 1-5: Bundled Applications Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Internet Explorer 8 Yes Yes Yes Yes Windows Gadgets and Gallery Yes Yes Yes Yes Games Explorer with basic games (FreeCell, Hearts, Minesweeper, Purble Place, Solitaire, Spider Solitaire) Yes Yes Yes Yes Premium games (Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Spades, Mahjong Titans) — Yes Yes Yes Calculator Yes Yes Yes Yes Paint Yes
32 Part I: Surviving Setup Table 1-6: Digital Media and Devices (continued) Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Dolby Digital compatibility — Yes Yes Yes AAC and H.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 33 Table 1-8: Mobility Features Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Windows Mobility Center — Yes (No Presentation Mode) Yes Yes Windows Sideshow (Auxiliary display) — Yes Yes Yes Sync Center Yes Yes Yes Yes Tablet PC functionality — Yes Yes Yes Multi-Touch support — Yes Yes Yes Starter Home Premium Professional Ultimate/ Enterprise Domain join (Windows Server) — — Yes Yes XP Mode licensed — — Yes
34 Part I: Surviving Setup Though 32-bit versions of Windows 7 “support” 4GB of RAM, they can only access about 3.1GB of RAM, even when a full 4GB of RAM is installed in the PC. This is because of a limitation in the way that 32-bit versions of Windows handle memory access. If you were to install an x64 version of Windows 7 on the same system, you would have access to the entire 4GB of RAM. The 64-bit Windows 7 versions have dramatically improved memory capacity, as noted in the preceding tables.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 35 Choosing Between Windows 7 Starter and Home Premium Table 1-10 shows some of the features that differ between the Starter and Home Premium versions of Windows 7 for home users. If you’ve decided that a consumer-oriented version of Windows 7 is what you need, Table 1-10 will help you decide which of the two available versions will best suit you.
36 Part I: Surviving Setup Choosing Between Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional Table 1-11 compares the features that are present in the Home Premium and Professional versions of Windows 7. ♦♦ Windows 7 Professional, unlike Home Premium, supports domain networking. This enables users to log on to a network server using Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) technology and share centrally managed resources.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 37 Choosing Windows 7 Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate combines all of the features that are available in all of the other Windows 7 versions, adds some unique features of its own, and comes with a premium price tag. In fact, Windows 7 Ultimate is so expensive compared to Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional that the only serious reason to get it is if you absolutely must have two drive encryption features, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go.
38 Part I: Surviving Setup Figure 1-1: When you’re buying a new PC, be sure to get the Windows 7 version you really want. As you’ll see in a moment, the cost of upgrading to a better or more expensive Windows 7 version is almost always lower if you do it at the time of the PC purchase. But regardless of the cost, it will always be easier to upgrade during the purchase process because the PC maker will install and configure the OS for you.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 39 And that’s the rub. Understanding whether you qualify for an Upgrade version of Windows 7 can be somewhat confusing. And even then, it’s not very clear when you can perform an in-place upgrade over an existing Windows version. Here are some guidelines.
40 Part I: Surviving Setup Your decision regarding which version to purchase will also be influenced by the cost difference of the more capable versions. Table 1-13 shows the current U.S. list prices for the different Windows 7 versions. These prices will almost certainly change over time. Table 1-13: U.S. List Prices for Windows 7 Product Editions Windows 7 Home Premium Windows 7 Home Premium Full $199.99 Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade $119.99 Windows 7 Professional Windows 7 Professional Full $299.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 41 Not sure what Windows XP or Vista product edition you have? In that OS, open the Start menu, right-click the My Computer (or, in Vista, Computer) icon, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. The window that appears will include your Windows product edition. Users with multiple PCs who are interested in Windows 7 Home Premium might also consider the specially priced Windows 7 Family Pack. Available for $149.
42 Part I: Surviving Setup Table 1-14: U.S. List Prices for Windows 7 OEM Product Editions Windows 7 Home Basic Windows 7 Starter OEM $39.99 Windows 7 Home Premium Windows 7 Home Premium OEM $73.99 Windows 7 Business Windows 7 Professional OEM $139.99 Windows 7 Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate OEM $199.99 Depending on which version you’re looking at, the savings are usually substantial. All of the OEM products (which are “Full” versions) are less expensive than the Upgrade retail versions of Windows 7.
Chapter 1: Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition 43 from, and your PC is quickly enhanced with the more powerful version you’ve selected. Because of the way in which the Windows 7 product line is designed, however, Windows Anytime Upgrade is available only in the following product editions: ♦♦ Windows 7 Starter can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate via Windows Anytime Upgrade.
44 Part I: Surviving Setup Summary Windows 7 certainly offers a lot of options when it comes to picking a product version, but with a little know-how, you will be able to make the right choice, one that matches both your needs and your budget. In this chapter, we’ve given you what you need to know to match a Windows 7 version to your needs. Now you just need to figure out how much the upgrade is going to cost.
