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Epicurus.com - Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1
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List Price: $269.99
Our Price: $209.99
Your Save: $ 60.00 ( 22% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Microsoft Software
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: DVD-ROM
Brand: Microsoft
EAN: 0882224661317
Feature: User-friendly software combines the features of Windows Vista Home Basic with even more impressive and user-friendly capabilities
Format: CD-ROM
Label: Microsoft Software
Manufacturer: Microsoft Software
Model: 66I-02387
Platform: Windows Vista
Publisher: Microsoft Software
Release Date: 2008-03-19
Studio: Microsoft Software
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Features
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User-friendly software combines the features of Windows Vista Home Basic with even more impressive and user-friendly capabilities
Features Windows Aero, an efficient and visually stunning interface that makes it easier to accomplish multiple tasks at once by providing a three-dimensional, real-time, animated view of all of your open applications, and documents
By integrating search throughout the operating system, helps you quickly find and organize large collections of documents, pictures, movies, videos, and music
Includes Windows Tablet and Touch Technology that enables you to interact with your Tablet PC-compatible computer with a digital pen or your fingertip instead of having to use a keyboard
Includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center; enjoy music, photos, and DVD movies
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Editorial Reviews:
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This is the preferred edition of Windows for home desktop and mobile PCs. Windows Vista Home Premium delivers the productivity and entertainment that you need from your PC at home or on the go. It includes Windows Media Center, which helps you more easily enjoy your digital photos, TV, movies, and music. Plus, you'll have the peace of mind of knowing that your PC has a whole new level of security and reliability. Whether you're balancing your checkbook, studying for school on your mobile PC, watching a downloaded or recorded movie, or sharing your favorite photos with friends on a custom DVD, the experience is much better on a PC running Windows Vista Home Premium.
Windows DVD Maker - Burn your photo slide shows & home movies to a professional-looking video DVD and watch them on a DVD player or PC Windows Movie Maker - Capture, edit, and publish your digital home movies in standard or high-definition format Instant Search & Windows Internet Explorer 7 - Quickly find what you need Elegant Windows Aero desktop experience with glass-like menu bars, Windows Flip 3D, & Live Thumbnails Automatic backup of your files, such as your valuable digital photos, music, movies, documents Built-in parental controls
System Requirements 800 MHz processor & 512 MB of system memory 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space Super VGA graphics support
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Definitely A Step Up Over Vista Basic...
Comment: Before receiving my review copy of Home Premium, I had been using the Home Basic Edition of Vista, so I was very interested in what the upgrade would offer. All versions of Vista are on the same disc, and one can update easily using the "Anytime Upgrade" feature, but I never got around to it. Interestingly, having now used both, their best points are are same ones that cause the most headaches. For the first time, Microsoft rewrote their OS from the source code up, which they claimed would increase security. They are right-not one virus has been able to attack my system. The only problem with this is that you must replace all of your security programs as a bare minimum. Products were rushed to market-Norton 2007 was such a disaster that purchasers were given the new version free as one of the updates. Updating from Basic, I really liked the Aero Glass interface ("No, we are not copying Apple!" the lawyers say...), as well as the Media Center capabilities. It actually includes most of the features of the "Ultimate Edition". But why can't one make a mirror copy of your hard drive for backups here? Nothing that you can't add from Norton, etc., but it would be nice. And if you thought Windows XP hogged computer resources, you haven't seen anything yet. In the end, if you have XP, there is no reason to rush to Vista-in fact, 200 new computers were just purchased where I work, and Windows XP was specified and installed on all of them. (The bugs are out of it by now.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incremental upgrade over XP
Comment: (There's a lot of rumor, debate, reviews, opinions about Vista out there. Because I am writing this as part of Amazon Vine, I tried to look at this with an open mind about Vista. I had been using Vista Business for testing, so I have some Vista experience before coming to this version of it.)
Looking through the included "Quick Start Guide", it's not clear what the point of Vista is--the meat of the guide is a "What's new" chapter that discusses only three things according to the Table of Contents: (1) the new start menu, (2) the new control panel layout, and (3) the "sidebar" for small applications calls gadgets. However, the chapter itself does describe a few bundled applications that come with Vista: Defender, IE, DVD Maker, Movie Maker, the new UI look, and a few other things. This is all well and good, but nothing is earth shattering.
And that's really the summary of Vista in a nutshell: It's newer. It's shinier. The desktop backgrounds are, by and large, gorgeous. There's a few new things here and there, such as the Control Panel (but you can switch to the old look if you cannot find anything in the new organization scheme). The Quick Start talks about Media Center capabilities, which in XP were a separate edition of the OS, but it's bundled here--in _this edition_ of Vista. It's not clear which features exist in which editions. Home Premium comes with a "Meeting Space" app for running a meeting. That sounds like a business function; does Business come with Media Center? Who knows?
So I see Vista as an incremental update over XP. When Windows 95 came out, a lot of people vowed to stick to Windows 3.1--The hardware requirements were steep for upgrading to 95, and the benefit was clear to some, but ambiguous to others ("does it run my new apps? Where is DOS?"). The difference between XP and Vista is certainly far less than the difference between 3.1 and 95, but eventually people will be upgrading their hardware and they will end up with the new OS.
Speed-wise, both Home Premium and Business feel "snappy" on my 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 4 GB of RAM. Since Microsoft is no longer selling XP as of June 30th of this year, Vista is going to become the only choice. It's not a bad OS compared to XP, but there's also no compelling reason to upgrade to it if you have a working XP environment. If you're upgrading from an older version of Windows such as 2000, it might be worth the cost. But who is really running 2000 these days?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wait for the next version - or stick with XP
Comment: There are numerous problems with this version of windows that I would recommend just waiting for the next version or sticking with XP. Most crucial is how slow it is loading. There are apparenrtly patches availble to fix a number of the glitches, but Microsoft should have done a better job testing this before unleashing it on the market.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I Still Prefer Leopard
Comment: I have to admit that I come into this with a bit of bias, I have been a Mac user for over 20 years. Now that Macs are able to run Windows on the same hardware I thought I would be worth it to give it a shot.
I can't say if this is an improvement as compared to previous versions of Windows, but what I can say is that from the short time I spent with this OS I would not be inclined to switch to Vista as my main operating system. It has nice graphics and was not at all terribly difficult to install but it just isn't doing for me.
I'll be back in a few weeks with a more in depth review, but you know what they say, "First impressions mean a lot."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ready for a 10 hour headache?
Comment: What a mess! Vista was an ambitious undertaking by Microsoft, and sure it "looks" better than XP, but when it comes to what matters, Vista fails remarkably in nearly every aspect than it claims to excel at. If you've got XP and it works just fine for you, there is absolutely no way I can recommend that you put yourself through the nightmare of Vista. If you manage to get past the hassle of getting this properly registered and working, you're then forced to put up with the numerous upgrades of other programs which, if you're lucky, will function error-free. Problem is, you shouldn't have to count on luck. Many programs which are less than a year old won't even function on Vista, after you've already spent hours on end trying everything possible to make them work. So it's up to you individually. Some have found it to be a seemless transition with no problems at all. Others, like myself, have had nothing but issues and a pounding headache. I for one reverted back to XP, and I plan on keeping it that way for the forseeable future.
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