Datasheet

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Part I: Surviving Setup
Step 4: Making the Right Product Edition Choice
Armed with the information in the preceding tables, we can think of Windows 7 as being
divided into four basic product categories, each of which is neatly covered by a single
product edition.
First up is Windows 7 Starter, which covers the bare-bones end of the market (netbooks
and other very low-end PCs). Starter edition offers basic functionality, but has some serious
limitations, not the least of which is that it can run only three applications at a time.
Then we have the two mainstream Windows 7 versions, Home Premium and Professional.
Home Premium is a superset of Starter: it has no application limitations, comes with the
snazzy Aero Glass effects, and includes numerous digital media features. Professional is
a superset of Home Premium, adding network backup, EFS, offline file access, and other
power user features.
At the top end of the market is Windows 7 Ultimate. This is the full meal deal, and
it includes BitLocker, multi-language capabilities, and everything else Windows 7 has
to offer.
Let’s see how these options break down.
Obviously, there is one other consideration to make here: price. For example, while
Windows 7 Ultimate may seem like a best of both worlds type product, it also comes
with premium pricing. We’ll examine the various ways in which you can purchase
Windows 7, and the cost of each option, later in this chapter.
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.
The most amazing thing about that 192GB address space on Windows 7
Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate is that it’s a moving target and could, in
fact, increase in the years ahead. In fact, it’s increased since Windows Vista. On
that system, the maximum amount of RAM was a relatively paltry 128GB. Ah,
progress.