Purchasing Vista, Need Advice!

Tayl

VIP Member
Hello all.

Right well, I'm an avid Linux user so going from Linux to Windows is hard enough for me because I'm not as familiar with it in the sense that I used to be years ago, and I haven't used Vista before. Basically I'm after Vista Home Premium for my laptop due to software requirements that aren't met on Linux for projects of mine.

Now, I walked into PC World and had a look at their software packages. Windows Vista Home Premium was like £140 odd. Is that right?!? There was another edition which was an upgrad, but I assume that's to go from a legitimate XP to Vista?

I've been looking about online and come across this on Ebuyers website: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/123052

That is the full package isn't it and not the upgrade package right? I mean I've read over it myself and haven't come across the upgrade status (but I skim read and haven't had any time to properly look into it). As in, my computer has absolutely no OS on it and I can slap that in and get Vista on it in a jiffy, jobby?

Also, what is the software support and compatibility like on 64bit as opposed to 32 bit Vista? Any software problems that are well known? Or is pretty much everything on 32bit available on 64bit now?

Christ, I feel such a beginner with Windows again. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Rove.
 
If you can find an OEM copy they tend to be cheaper. Home Premium is enough for the average user. You can't upgrade from linux, so you need the full copy.

Looks like the copy in your link is in fact an OEM copy, so yes that should be the full version.

64 bit Vista is a hell of a lot better than 64 bit XP was. Theres still a couple things that aren't supported, but as long as your using up to date hardware you shouldn't have any problems (for instance an old tuner card I had worked in 32 bit but not 64 bit, but that's where my troubles stopped). If your using 4gb or more ram than I highly recommend 64 bit. If you have less than that I would recommend 32 bit.

Hope this helps
 
the one in your link is an oem full version. You will only get 3 installs out of it if you ever need to reinstall and I'm pretty sure microsoft won't give you support such as emails and such or something like that. you can, of course, still download updates and such. I got the oem home premium and all is well except for a display driver issue but that's not because of the oem.
 
Vista home premium upgrade was on sale at staples for $100 but it only loads inside your previous OS. that must be windows 2000 with at lease service pack 2 or windows XP. For still undetermined reasons vista upgrade would not load on my machine with OEM full version of XP. Still trying. My next step will be to reload my full version of windows 2000, install SP4, and try again. Windows Vista full version costs $240, a sizable investment. It comes as OEM with many commercially available computers. It might be cheaper just to buy a prebuilt system. INcidentally, I loaded a friends OEM vista just to check it out on my machine and it would not register.
 
can you still upgrade a version of windows with an older upgrade version?

what i mean is, you used to be able to use a Windows 98 Upgrade disc to upgrade with a Windows Xp Upgrade disc.
 
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