Why Basic?

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Guest

I wanted to upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate, I have about $125 thus far
(I know I have a way to go) and I downloaded Upgrade Adviser, it says that
the best version for me is Basic. Why? What will happen if I get Premium of
Ultimate?
 
Nate said:
I wanted to upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate, I have about $125 thus far
(I know I have a way to go) and I downloaded Upgrade Adviser, it says that
the best version for me is Basic. Why? What will happen if I get Premium
of
Ultimate?
Click to expand...

simply put.... don't.
Besides the cost of the OS itself, you're going to have to factor in all of
the hardware you'll now have to replace.

As a lot of people here (myself included) have discovered, the UA lies.
MS's latest marketing tool routinely tells people their hardware is just
fine, but what it -doesn't- say is that in many cases there simply aren't
any available drivers.
In your case, if the UA is telling you that you're only ready for Basic,
don't even bother.
Vista is only Windows 95 v4.0 anyway.
 
This tells me you must have Win XP Home now.

The adviser is advising you to upgrade to the Vista version that most
closely matches the functionality of your current installation of XP.
Assuming it meets your needs now. If you have added needs, describe them
here so you can get more informed advice.

Vista Home Premium (over Home Basic) adds what used to be called Media
Center (do you need to run your TV from you computer?).

Vista Ultimate (over Home Basic) adds Media Center plus advanced Windows
Domain Networking (need either of those?).

If you have no new needs, stick with Vista Basic.

-Frank
 
If your computer is not physically capable of running Home Premium or
Ultimate, the operating system will down grade itself till it is somewhat
like Vista Basic anyway. The choice is yours.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
 
Nate said:
I wanted to upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate, I have about $125 thus far
(I know I have a way to go) and I downloaded Upgrade Adviser, it says that
the best version for me is Basic. Why? What will happen if I get Premium of
Ultimate?
Click to expand...

Being a full time teacher, I was eligible for the Academic Version of Vista
which turns out to be: Home Premium Upgrade. This was obtained retail for
$68. This is also available to full time students.
(It's the full version, but you must already own a copy of XP or 2000.)

Using the Windows Anytime Upgrade utility, I upgraded to Ultimate for an
additional $159. This makes a total of $227. Significantly less than full
price for Vista Ultimate.

The three trouble spots I encountered:
1. The Control Panel link to Windows Anytime Upgrade did not link to
anything. To get there, I went to the MS website and searched for Windows
Anytime Upgrade and was able to perform the function correctly in this manner.

2. Windows Anytime Upgrade does not provide the User with a new Product Key.
This may worry some that reinstallation after fatal Hard Drive errors may
revert them back to the original version. But, MS assures us that our license
will be maintained forever in the Digital Locker for download providing a
means to upgrade to Ultimate again. Unfortunately, this means you would have
to install the original XP, 2000 or Vista as Home Premium without the Product
Key as Trial Software to get a clean install to work from your original
upgrade disk followed by a second install using the downloaded license.
Pretty cumbersome as I'd rather have to only install once as a recovery
measure. (But, of course, this is my fault for buying the cheaper model.)

3. The license you purchase will not show up in the Digital Locker for four
days after your purchase. So, if things go wrong on the install, you may be
stuck for a few days.

For the slightly savvy:
If you right-click the downloaded license file and open with Notepad, you
can simply scroll to the right a little ways and get your Product Key from
the file. This makes future installations easier.
 
johnm said:
simply put.... don't.
Besides the cost of the OS itself, you're going to have to factor in all
of the hardware you'll now have to replace.
Click to expand...

Very true.
As a lot of people here (myself included) have discovered, the UA lies.
MS's latest marketing tool routinely tells people their hardware is just
fine, but what it -doesn't- say is that in many cases there simply aren't
any available drivers.
Click to expand...

Indeed. The advisor is very limited in this regard.
In your case, if the UA is telling you that you're only ready for Basic,
don't even bother.
Click to expand...

In general, yes, I see your point; if someone's computer can only run Vista
Basic then they need to think carefully about what value they hope to gain
from an upgrade.

However, If I were the OP I'd look into why, specifically, it made this
suggestion. It may be that this is something cheap and simple to address. Or
it may be a totally impossible pain in the hoop to upgrade. We don't have
enough info here to make that judgement.
Vista is only Windows 95 v4.0 anyway.
Click to expand...

Now this is just plain wrong. Vista is from a line of code that is not the
slightest bit related to Windows 95.
 
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