Does Vista Give You Too Many Choices? It's great to have options, and being able to pay for the software features you want, and not have to waste money paying for features you don't want and will never use, seems like a great idea. We got a taste of that with Windows XP: if you're a business user or a home power user who needs to be able to connect your computer to a domain or wants to encrypt files with EFS or connect to your system from somewhere else via Remote Desktop, you could pay extra for XP Professional. If you only want to do simple home computing tasks such as checking email and surfing the web and running a word processing program, you could save a few bucks by getting XP Home instead. There are also a couple of special purpose editions, for Tablet PCs and Media Center home entertainment computers, but those operating systems come installed on the systems. Now, with Windows Vista, there are even more choices - and some users are a little confused by the plethora of options that are expected to be available. Pundits are making fun of the abundance of choices; see this humorous article claiming that "Windows Vista to Ship in 33 Different Versions": In reality, Microsoft now lists five editions on the Vista web site: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions (back in February, Microsoft announced six editions which included Vista Starter Edition, a very restricted version for "emerging markets" - read third world countries - only). Although pricing hasn't yet been officially announced, we expect the cost to rise approximately in that order. How do you decide which one you need? Home Basic will be the lowest priced of the retail editions and will be very, well, basic, much like XP Home. Perhaps most notably, it won't support the cool Aero glass interface with its translucent windows and other eye candy. Cynics might wonder, if you don't get Aero, why not just continue to run XP? Basic will, however, include security enhancements, parental control, improved search capabilities, Windows Mail, Calendar and Contacts, and other new features. Home Premium offers additional features, such as EFS encryption, as well as both Tablet PC and Media Center PC functionality and a host of entertainment applications such as DVD authoring, photo management, and extra games. Home Premium supports twice as much RAM as Home Basic (16 GB vs. 8 GB). On the business side, you now have two choices, two - well, sort of. Business Edition is comparable to XP Pro. It includes IIS (web server software), fax support, Remote Desktop, and dual processor support, among other business oriented features, as well as most of the features of Home Premium except for Media Center. Companies that enter into a Software Assurance or Enterprise Licensing agreement with Microsoft can go a step further and get Enterprise Edition, which adds BitLocker drive encryption (enhanced security for company laptops that contain sensitive information), a built-in version of Virtual PC that runs a single VM session at a time, UNIX application support and better multi-language support. This version won't be available to individuals through retail or OEM channels. Finally, there's the best (and most expensive) of all possible worlds: Vista Ultimate. It has all the features of Enterprise Edition, along with the entertainment features of Home Premium, including Media Center, and is the high end option for both home users/gamers and business users who are multimedia professionals. To confuse matters a little more, there are also expected to be "N" editions of both Home Basic and Business editions, which don't include Windows Media Player. These are made to comply with EU regulations and will only be available in the European Union. All these choices may cause some folks to agonize a bit when they decide to take the upgrade plunge, especially home users. Should you stick with Basic, spend a little more for Premium, or bite the bullet, empty your wallet and go all the way with Ultimate? The good news is that, if you start out conservatively and later discover that you want more features, Microsoft is making it easy for you to upgrade one version of Vista to another. The Anytime Upgrade licenses will be sold by PC vendors and solutions providers. If you have Home Basic, you can upgrade to either Premium or Ultimate. If you have Business Edition, you can upgrade to Ultimate. You can read more about the program, which started beta testing this month, at: Do you want to un-install Vista? Uninstalling Vista from a dual boot machine is relatively straightforward - most of the time. Nonetheless, we recommend that you back up everything before you start. Then follow these steps: Put your Windows XP installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reboot the computer (be sure the BIOS is set to boot from CD). How much will Vista cost? We get asked that all the time, and although Microsoft hasn't officially announced the pricing for Vista at the time of this writing, Amazon recently put up their "pre-order" prices for the various Vista editions, as reported on several web sites last week: http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/29/technology/vista_amazon.reut/index.htm New Vista Networking Features Microsoft completely rewrote the TCP/IP stack in Vista, making a number of improvements. Some of these, such as native support for IPv6, won't mean much to the average home or office user. Others, like the new algorithms that should result in a considerable improvement in network speed/improvement for those with fast broadband connections, will be welcome by all. The new Network Center, which replaces My Network Places, may take a little getting used to. I like the graphical map of the network, and it's nice that you can use the Personalize feature to change the name and icon of a network connection. This is especially useful when connecting to wireless networks that were previously identified by their SSIDs (which was often something generic like Linksys3345).You can read more about Vista's new networking features at: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/features/foreveryone/networking.mspx Don't like the Secure Desktop? Here's How to Turn it Off One of the things complained about most in Vista is the intrusiveness of some of the new security features. For example, if you try to install a program or perform other tasks that require elevated privileges, your screen goes dark and the rest of the desktop locks until you complete the dialog box asking you to enter admin credentials or, if you're logged on as an administrator, asking if you want to continue. This is called the secure desktop, but if you don't like it, you can get rid of it without getting rid of those dialog boxes themselves. In the Administrative Tools menu, select Local Security Policy (you'll get the security prompt). In the left pane of the console, expand Local Policies and click Security Options. Scroll down in the right pane to the item labeled "User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation" and double click. This policy is enabled by default; click Disable to turn the behavior off. Microsoft Vista Help & Support web page: Vista Sidebar and Gadgets One new feature in Vista that beta testers seem to either love or hate is the Sidebar, which appears by default vertically aligned on the right side of your monitor screen and contains a variety of "gadgets," little quickly-accessed applications like a notepad for typing or pasting quick notes, an RSS feed display, weather forecasts, CPU and memory monitors, a slideshow that displays the photos in your Pictures folder, a stock ticker, clocks, a calculator and much more. See the sidebar here: You can choose from the gadgets included in Vista, or download new ones from the Microsoft Windows Live Gallery web site. You can move the sidebar to a secondary monitor or to the left side of the screen, and you can turn it off if you don't like it taking up screen real estate. Vista Performance Information Feature Vista goes to sleep WGA in Vista: a growing concern DreamScene: ultimate cool wallpaper You can extend the Vista activation grace period to 120 days What's the difference between the Vista editions? How can I get Vista to stop being an overprotective mother? Click here for even more Vista tips and tricks Click here are some installation Tips and Tricks.
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