Imagine you want to buy a new computer and you have the choice between a cheaper one with Vista Home Basic and a more expensive one with Vista Home Premium. Which one would you take ? Let me walk you through the different Windows Vista editions and explain how they compare in functionality and pricing.

Windows Vista Differences:

It all starts with Windows Vista Starter which will not be sold in North America and the European Union but in countries like Russia and Brazil. This one could also be named Vista light because it has a physical memory limit of 256 megabytes and support for older cpu’s only. If you travel much and see a cheap Windows Vista Starter don’t buy it, it is useless for high-end computers.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic and Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium are the editions that will most likely be added if you buy a new computer. Home Basic is mostly for users who do not need advanced media capabilities such as HDTV support or DVD authoring. Home Pro does support this which makes up the biggest difference.

Home Basic has a limit of 8 GB of physical memory, Home Pro of 16 GB.

The next two in line are Microsoft Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise. Vista Business replaces Windows Xp Professional and includes all features of Vista Home Premium with the exception of Windows Media Center and related features such as Parental Controls. Adds features as fax support and IIS-web server.

Vista Enterprise will not be available on the free market, it has the same features as Microsoft Windows Vista Business and adds a multilingual user interface, drive encryption and Unix support.

Last but not least there is Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate which combines Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Vista Enterprise and ships with additional extras like a game performance tweaker.

You may purchase Vista Home Basic N and Business N in the European Union which is basically the same as the normal Vista editons but ships without the media player because of anti-trust laws.

The difference in pricing is 200$ between Vista Home Basic and Vista Ultimate. I personally think that this many editions will be confusing for the customers. I sometimes work tech support and they have troubles naming the current operating system they use – how on earth will they know the differences between all those Vista editions ?

The biggest advantage of Windows compared to Linux was in my opinion the ease of choosing the operating system. If you wanted Windows you went to a store and bought it. (XP Pro and Home changed this a bit already). With Linux you have millions of different distributions and beginners simply do not know which to choose. The exactly same problem will arise with Windows Vista.

The most common questions in the coming months on the internet will probably be ” does Vista Edition X support Y, will I be able to use Z on Edition A ?”