This version will not will not legally be available for sale in the United States. This is the mainstream retail version that nearly all consumers will be using. Also available worldwide, to OEMs and in retail, Windows 7 Professional has the features of Home Premium, but with added networking and data protection features for small businesses and those who frequently work at home.
Windows 7 Professional will not include the more buzzed-about business features such as DirectAccess and BranchCache. They show up in the next version up the food chain, Windows 7 Enterprise. Windows 7 Enterprise is only available to businesses through volume licensing. Unlike OS X, which has one version for everyone, Windows tries to break it down into several groups with different price points.
Depending on what you will be using your computer for, you may only need the Home version or you may need Ultimate. There is Windows 7 Starter, which is usually on netbooks. Windows 7 Home Basic is available in emerging markets and not here in the US. And Windows 7 Enterprise is sold through volume licensing to companies and institutions. Note that if you buy the most basic version of Windows, you can still upgrade at any time using Windows Anytime Upgrade.
Basically, the Home version includes Professional and Ultimate, but those extra features will only be installed when you purchase it. When we upgrade to newer version of Windows, we may need to get new drivers for our hardware. So, because of that we will notice that many people are still installing Windows XP for hardware and software compatibility.
Sometimes new hardware will only have drivers for newer operating system, for example, for Windows 8 and not for Vista and older. In that case we would have to upgrade to Windows 8 in order to use that hardware. For example, those features are Aero, search and indexing capabilities, sidebar and gadgets, improvements with Media Center, BitLocker which offers encryption of the data on your hard drives, etc. All these features are not available on Windows XP.
When choosing between Vista and Windows 7, we will often find that Windows 7 is the better choice. Windows 7 is an update and an upgrade from Windows Vista, and is at least as compatible as Vista with hardware and software.
In addition to choosing the operating system version, we will also need to choose the edition. Each edition has a subset of features for an intended market. Typically every Windows version has a Home edition, or a Home Premium. Those editions are intended for a small network in a home environment.
The Home edition is the most basic and the most limited edition. Home Premium includes some additional features such as Aero, Media Center, as well as some other options. The Home edition is best suited for computers with very limited hardware capabilities. Another edition, depending on the operating system version, is a Professional or Business edition. With professional or Business edition we have the ability to connect to a domain.
Many of the features in the Home Premium edition are also included in the Professional edition. One other feature is the additional language support. A final edition we might see is Enterprise. There are freeware apps out there that specialize in translation; and you can download free Microsoft language packs. However, this will not give the ease of the built-in language switching capabilities of Windows Ultimate.
Worth the upgrade? If you are debating between Professional and Ultimate, you might as well swing the extra 20 bucks and go for Ultimate.
If you are debating between Home Basic and Ultimate, you decide. Freeware apps are what they are and they are not built-in to Windows. If you believe that you will use several of the features that Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate offer, and want to use Microsoft programs, go for the upgrade.
Regular followers of Online-Tech-Tips? If you want to know the exact differences between each and every versions of Windows 7, check out this Wikipedia article. Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor.
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