What version of Windows 7 should I get? (See details)

There is no reason to use Vista intermediately, unless you plane on doing an upgrade rather than a clean install, which I would strongly discourage. If you don’t intend to use your PC linked to your TV, I would suggest Win-7 Pro, with a clean install, and then rfeinstall your program files. Back up your data first.

You forgot one… Windows 7 Enterprise.

There really is no reason to use Vista period unless you are into S&M. If you already have an XP box and are not into whips and chains, I would take #2 off the list and burn it.

The upgrade from XP pretty much requires a clean install, so #1 is also out.

And as near as I can see, most of the features of the higher versions are available through third-party software, often for free, so I personally would go for the full version of Home Premium, back up your stuff, and go from there.

Vista is not as bad as people say. So if you want to minimize cost I would go with that. Otherwise Win 7 Premium is the best choice for most people.

After using Win 7 beta and Release candidates for about a year, I reverted to Vista and it’s perfectly OK. I think the original complaints have been smooth with Service Packs and third party updates.

Windows 7 is a bit better than Vista. Home Premium is usually the cost/features sweet spot.

As @jerv mentions, most of the advantages of Win 7 Pro over Home Premium can be implemented with other apps.

For me, the big draw of Win 7 Pro is Remote Desktop. VNC and other remote options have never worked well for me.

Another is the free XP license with Win 7 XP mode. But if you have the XP disk, and you really need to run XP (most people don’t) then you can do just about as well with Virtual PC or VirtualBox.

@dpworkin Thanks. Pro just for the XP virtual machine? I hate having to even think about reinstalling all m programs. So many software keys to find yet again. Oh well, I know the day is coming, and waiting till the last minute won’t likely make it any easire.

@rpmpseudonym I can’t see any need for Enterprise.

@jerv Thanks.

@jaytkay I thought Vista was the alpha-version of Windows 7. Or am I just jaded? Or maybe reading too many articles like this in a magazine whose cover read “Microsoft’s $6billion mistake” have prejudiced me.

@ETpro I was originally skeptical of 7’s ability to handle my stuff, but so far the only apps I have had issues with are the ones that I had to do some kludging to get to run under XP. The stuff I have that was written for XP (as opposed to Win95 or DOS) works just fine under 7 Home Premium.

@jaytkay The XP virtual box is certainly an option. It might be worth the extra cash though just to keep XP emulation as simple as possible.

@jerv That’s encouraging. I’ve had no trouble getting anything I use to run under XP. Is the XP virtual machine available 3rd party, or should I consider Pro just for that?

@ETpro I was editing that last post as you were typing. Let me check the options….

Personally, I have an old version of Virtual PC around so I don’t have to worry much if I do run into issues, but let me see what I can find for you just in case.

Go ahead and back up your data and then do a clean install with Win7 Pro.

@ETpro Is the XP virtual machine available 3rd party, or should I consider Pro just for that?

Virtual PC from Microsoft is free and switching between the host and guest OS is beautifully seamless.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx

VirtualBox is free and runs Linux easier and will run 64-bit guests
http://www.virtualbox.org/

@jaytkay Virtualbox looked the most promising to me as well, so we’ll just go with that.

I’m VERY tempted to grab a Wholesale Promo copy of Ultimate for $138. It’s actually cheaper than most people are selling Home Edition Complete. Now to see if they will let me get away with ordering just one copy.

Ha! It took the order. Let’s see if they actually ship it.

Always do a clean install. Get ultimate. It’s worth a few extra $.

@UScitizen Unless they refuse to ship just one copy, Ultimate is on its way.

Get Ultimate, be awesome.

@jerv My understanding was that 7 was actually released because they screwed up so badly with Vista and it was like “ok, here’s what it’s supposed to be like, but if we had taken our heads out of our asses”.

@papayalily there are very few real differences between vista and 7 its just 7 has better PR. MS completely changed some core elements of windows in vista that caught a lot of hardware makers sleeping (Creative I am looking at you) this meant that driver support for some hardware was either very poor or completely lacking which upset a lot of people. Becasue drivers had much more limited access to the hardware badly written drivers could’t completely kill the system so you got fewer blue screens of death. What you did get was windows changing the wallpaper to black and then carrying on regardless but as it didn’t tell you “hey I just recovered from a fatal system error with no problems at all and all you have to is change the wallpaper back instead of rebooting your system and then redoing all the work you would have lost” it just pissed people off.

Also as most windows users only use admin accounts user account control was a worthless waste of time.