Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

• Quick specs
• Price: Purchase $159.00 to buy
• Operating system: Windows XP
• Date added: January 29, 2007
• Total Downloads: 266,843
• Downloads last week: 3,021
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• Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 32 votes
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The good: Windows Vista Home Premium does improve some features within Windows XP; fewer system crashes than Windows XP; and Windows Vista offers better built-in support options.

The bad: Windows Vista Home Premium does not put Search on the desktop (it's buried within applications, within the Start Menu); no new software yet written exclusively for Windows Vista; optimized only for the Microsoft Windows ecosystem (for example, RSS feeds from Internet Explorer 7 get preferential treatment); Tablet PC support unnecessary; fax and scan support missing; and there are too many editions of Windows Vista.

The bottom line: Windows Vista Home Premium is essentially warmed-over Windows XP Home Edition. If you're currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista Home Premium is stable enough for everyday use. Reviewed by: Robert Vamosi; Reviewed on: 1/24/07; Release date: 1/30/07

User reviews

• Average user rating: 3.2 stars out of 32 votes
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• Showing 5 of 27 user reviewsSee all 27 user reviews
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• 4 stars

  42 out of 44 people found this review helpful

  Version: Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

  "good but not that of a change"

  by yamanskheita on January 30, 2007

  Pros: i like the new look of vista and the new user interface including themes, backgrounds, and icons.

  home premium is a big shift from xp and a new experience but it is a costly one.

  it has everything xp media center has + a few stuff.

  the thing is if you have the money shift to vista home premuim.

  Cons: the bad side of vista home premuim is that it is a big system hog.

  i have tried the four versions of vista and the the only version that is the most efficient is the business one.

  on an 1 gb ram system with 3.2 ghrz possessor, the media center kills the computer's memory. it uses 90% of the ram.

  the media center has a different look from the xp's media center, but it isn't a technical change. nothing changed exept for the user's interface.

  in the xp mediacenter, you could use the built in messenger inside windows with he media center which in vista it disappeared.

  the bottom line is that you should try it before you buy it. try the 30 day trail of vista and if you like it, shift to it, and if you dont, drop it.

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• 4 stars

  6 out of 7 people found this review helpful

  Version: Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

  "As an upgrade to XP, hell no but,"

  by The Sports Fan on January 12, 2008

  Pros: If you are in the market for a new PC, this Operating System is great. It's so much more user friendly and easier to work with I would be writing all night to tell all. One example is during a fresh install, "Vista" installs almost all your PC's drivers. Another is all internet favorites are stored in a folder in the users account called favorites. Save that file to an external drive or disk and you never have the drab time of redoing your favorites one at a time.. "Vista Home Premium" on a new computer rocks. Faster, better looking, more user friendly and more stable. It will never implode on you like "Windows XP" does.

  Cons: Sorry but I believe the poor reviews are by people who haven't given it a fair shot, never used it or installed it fresh and those unfortunate enough not to have a "Vista" computer.

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• 5 stars

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  Version: Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

  "Great operating system!"

  by jeff.114 on June 30, 2008

  Pros: In my opinion, Windows Vista Home Premium is much better and faster than Windows XP. For any of those who disagree: Don't care & don't want to hear it.

  Cons: Nothing that I can think of.

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• 5 stars

  2 out of 3 people found this review helpful

  Version: Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

  "DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES"

  by bry27 on February 12, 2008

  Pros: OK, first , my computer...?05 Gateway with an Athlon 2.4G dual-core, 2G RAM, 256MB video...so it's not that great a computer, OK? I upgraded the CPU, RAM, and video card, it came with XP Media Center. I waited to get Vista because all the complaints I heard about it; driver issues, incompatible programs, incompatible hardware, etc, etc. Well I went ahead and got Vista Home Premium. I have been using it for a few weeks now and I have one question...WHY THE HELL DID I WAIT SO LONG??? During install, Vista found and installed all but 2 or 3 of my drivers, I went back and manually checked and everything was up to date except for the video card and wireless mouse. WHOOP-DE-FRIGGIN-DO!! So I simply clicked on update driver and BAM! it found them all by its self!! Imagine that! And as far as the old programs and incompatible hardware...no problems. NONE. The biggest complaint I have is with the mouse. In XP I had to search and search for an update to fix the wireless mouse/screen saver issue. It seems they included it with Vista, BUT, if it's been idle for a bit but before the screen saver kicks in then I grab the mouse there is a SMALL delay before the cursor moves. And if that's the biggest problem I have with Vista then fine by me! Oh, and that User Account Control is very annoying so I turned it off. No big deal.

  My Vista experience: A great upgrade to an aging OS. they really put some thought into this, it sounds like they listened to what an end-user wants. A well laid-out, smooth-running OS. The search function is much better as well as the control panel layout. Disk defrag now includes a scheduler. The visuals are great too! Sidebar, eh, I could take it or leave it, doesn't use as many resources as I've heard other people complain about. And on that subject, yes it does use more resources, but we were WARNED that it would. Also, you can turn off features like Aero and the Search Indexer, the biggest resource hogs. But you know what? I paid for this RAM and I'm going to use it!!

  Cons: My biggest problem with Vista is other people bashing it. It makes me wonder if these are the same people that can't figure out how to set up a firewall and then give it one star because they are stupid. Or maybe they're the ones that install a program and just click-click-click and then complain when they have five toolbars on their browser. GET VISTA!!!!!

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• 4 stars

  5 out of 5 people found this review helpful

  Version: Windows Vista Home Premium upgrade

  "All versions of vista support dual core processors even basic"

  by fatriff on June 26, 2008

  Pros: I love this opperating system,I had to write this review to inform everybody that another review on here saying vista basic or premium doesn't support Dual-Core processors is completely wrong,

  If you have a PC with multiple physical CPUs - that is, two or more chips installed on the motherboard (were not talking dual core here, were talking 2 or more completely seperate processors) - you'll need Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate to take advantage of both CPUs. If you install Vista Home Basic or Home Premium, the OS will only recognize one CPU. That's similar to the way Windows XP works today - if have a dual-CPU machine, you need to install XP Professional to use both CPUs.

  So what about dual-core CPUs? That's different. All Vista versions, even the lowly Home Basic, support multiple cores on a single chip, with no additional configuration required.

  So there you have it, i wonder how many people ended up not buying vista because of this guys review.

  Cons: what i don't like is the software issues, some of the programs i had been using for years cause vista to hang, even ares causes vista to crash, but these are issues the software providers should fix and not microsoft.

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