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Windows Vista Versions

By Jason Kato | April 11, 2007

By now, you’ve seen or heard of Microsoft’s newest operating system for desktops and notebooks: Windows Vista. Prior to the holiday season, PC makers introduced Vista by providing upgrade vouchers for new PC purchases. And in February, Microsoft announced some 20 million copies were sold to consumers worldwide. So yes, it is out, but did you know there is more than one Vista to choose from?

Windows Vista can be thought of as a family of operating systems for PCs which share the same primary name. Recall that with Windows XP, there was a version named “XP Home”, “XP Media Edition”, and also “XP Professional” (or XP Pro for short). After more than 5 years of refinement, Vista adopts a similar naming approach, which we’ll introduce briefly in this article.

For the US market, Windows Vista arrives in 4 consumer/retail editions, and a single corporate edition. They are:

Windows Vista – Home Basic.
Considered the entry-level option, this can be thought of as a marketing equivalent to the former XP Home product. Basic is fully Vista software, with Internet Explorer 7, Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express), and Media Player 11 enhancements. You can produce CDs (not DVDs), and run most software that is Vista compatible. This version also includes added security in the form of Parental Controls.

Windows Vista – Home Premium.
Incorporates all of Home Basic components and adds support for Tablet PCs, DVD authoring tools, and features similar to XP’s Media Center Edition. An enhanced graphical interface option (Aero) is also included for PCs with compatible video hardware.

Windows Vista - Business.
Workplace oriented, Vista Business supports connection to company domains, more Tablet PC integration, multiple physical CPU systems, and corporate-level system management options (such as remote desktop, image backups, file encryption, volume shadow, user profiles, etc.) and the Aero interface. Does not contain features of Home Premium, due to the business-focus, however this can be positioned similarly to the former XP Professional edition.

Windows Vista enterprise.
Corporate focused, this edition is only available to corporations and authorized institutions through Microsoft via non-retail licensing programs. Functionally very similar to Vista Business, this edition adds drive encryption (Windows Bit-Locker), the option of using alternate languages, and license structure permitting multiple concurrent copies of Vista to operate using Virtual PC 2007. UNIX-based application support is provided via a UNIX emulation module subsystem.

Windows Vista Ultimate.
Considered the top-shelf edition, Ultimate includes most of the features of all other Vista editions. Corporate supported, yet consumer (Media Center) enhanced, this edition can be thought of as the advanced/power-user edition, particularly on notebook/mobile systems which operate under multiple functional roles (though Microsoft positions this product as a consumer/retail edition). In addition, there are optional services and products (Ultimate Extras) available for this edition from a growing list of producers.

Separately from these 5 US 32-bit editions, Microsoft (worldwide) offers special editions to Europe and Asia with various component mixes, and a special pre-installed version known as Vista Starter Edition, again with varied feature sets. Also, there are 64-bit versions of Vista, though this is covered in a different topic.

Steve Goto
Project Manager and Systems Engineer
Array Systems - Computer Harware Engineers

Topics: Windows Vista |