Windows Vista FAQ
Q: How many versions does Windows Vista come in?
A: Windows Vista has many more versions than Windows XP.
* Home Basic: $199 full, $99 upgrade
* Home Premium: $239 full, $159 upgrade
* Business: $299 full, $199 upgrade
* Ultimate: $399 full, $259 upgrade
* The Home Basic is a basic version which does not include the Aero Glass effect.
* The Home Premium includes everything in the Home Basic and adds the Aero Glass effect, Movie Maker, Tablet PC functionality, Windows Media Center and scheduled backups among others.
* The Business Edition drops some features from the Home Premium like Movie Maker and Media Center but adds features like Remote Desktop and complete PC Backup.
* The Ultimate edition as the name implies includes all the goodies from Home Premium and the Business version.
For most of the home users the Home Premium edition is going to be good enough for them and compared the $199 XP Upgrade price tag, the $159 Vista Home Premium upgrade price tag is cheaper.
Q: Will I have to buy a new computer to run Vista?
A: Chances are if you purchased your computer within the last 2 years you could run Vista including the Aero Glass effect without doing any upgrades to your computer. The Aero Glass requires a DirectX 9 video card with a minium of 128MB onboard RAM. You could also run the Upgrade Advisor Tool available at Microsoft’s website which checks to see if your computer is ready for Windows Vista.
Q: Does Home Basic and Home Premium support the Dual Core Processors?
A: According to Microsoft’s policy a Dual Core Processor is still considered a single physical processor since it is just one die or chip that has two processors on it. So as long as you have only one processor in your computer Home Basic and Home Premium will use all the cores no matter if it is dual core or quad core. If you have multiple physical processors then you might want to think about the Business or Ultimate editions. Although Home Basic and Home Premium will install itself and run on machines with multiple physical processor, it will just use only one processor.
Q: Is Windows Vista more secure than Windows XP?
A: According to Microsoft the most the Operating System code has been re-written to make it more secure. But no Operating System connected to the internet will ever be completely secure. So you will still need your firewalls and your anti-virus software and make sure that Vista is up-to-date with the latest security patches.