Windows Vista To Come In 7 Flavors

Dionne writes "Microsoft is really milking it with this one: According to an Ars Technica report, there will be 7 versions of Windows Vista: Starter Edition, Home Basic Edition, Home Premium Edition, Professional Edition, Small Business Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Ultimate Edition." From the article: "Windows Vista Ultimate Edition is a superset of both Vista Home Premium and Vista Pro Edition, so it includes all of the features of both of those product versions, plus adds Game Performance Tweaker with integrated gaming experiences, a Podcast creation utility (under consideration, may be cut from product), and online "Club" services (exclusive access to music, movies, services and preferred customer care) and other offerings (also under consideration, may be cut from product)."

Re:So six of them have artificial limitations?

[xao gypsie]

after the release date? no way. I remember having a 'friend' who was able to find a workaround for the activation fiasco before the release of windows xp....

Re:This is going to confuse the hell out of people

[mkro]

Home users probably won't know what version they have, and that will complicate tech support calls of all types.

Been there, done that.
- "So do you have service pack 2 installed?"
- "Uhm, maybe you should speak to my son, I am not much into this..."
- "Hold the little flag button on the bottom left of your keyboard, then push the Pause/Break button faaar up on the right at the same time"
- "Oh, something happened."
- "Can you read what is says under System?"
- "Uh, yes, Windows... copyright, oh, Service pack 2"

Usually this does not take longer than 30 secs, and will most likely work on Vista too.

Re:Windows Vista Forum

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't "find" the website. You own the website. You've already said you own iconnectzone.com [slashdot.org]. A Whois on winvistasecrets.com [enom.com] and a whois on iconnectzone.com [enom.com] gives the same owner: Linlay Lee Kien On. Most of your comments spam these links. The Slashdot community doesn't give a shit about some Micro$oft-promoting website. So get lost.

Re:This is going to confuse the hell out of people

[Krach42]

What like with Windows XP? XP has six flavors:

Windows XP Personal Edition
Windows XP Professional Edition
Windows XP Personal Edition N
Windows XP Professional Edition N
Windows XP...
Windows XP...

I don't remember the other two off the top of my head, but I know they're there.

Or, maybe it's like Server 2003 [microsoft.com]

Which comes in 5 flavors:

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition
Windows Server 2003 High-Performance Computing
Windows Small Business Server 2003

(I left out the x64, and ia64 flavors, as I don't believe those are actually really all that much of "flavors" but they are sold seperately, so I guess you could make it 7.)

So, wow. Despite actually having the names for the flavors of Windows Vista. What's the news here? That Microsoft has targetted its products since XP? That's is old news.

Re:Flavours?

[generic-man]

And why can't I just buy Word and Excel and none of the other ass programs?

Microsoft Office Word 2003 [buy.com] (the upgrade version is about half the price)

Microsoft Office Excel 2003 [buy.com] (the upgrade version is about half the price)

If "too many options confuse people and make them pissed off," then Linux is absolutely fucked.

Re:Hey Mr. Comedian - enough with BSOD

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are a fucking FUD spreading moron. You do realize that a significant portion of the computing/gaming world use that exact combination of hardware?

I bet they will be crippled except for ultimate

[Billly Gates]

Microsoft in the past has been known to cripple its own VC++ compiler so that the best executables created will only work the the professional and enterprise editions.

My guess is the frame rates for games will be slowed down in all but the ultimate edition. It will be a classic MS strategy but I will try to be optimistic.

I dont like the fact that vista already criples video output on purpose to force you to be a drm enabled monitor.

I think I will stick with Windows2k which I use now. I do like the new avolon api and docking features. It looks alot like object desktop and the customization looks sweet but this other garbage is a big turn off.

Re:Flavours?

[anagama]

"I'm sorry but windows is *not* an "easy-to-install", "easy-to-use" desktop OS."

Compared to Linux it is.

Oh for cryin' out loud -- I seriously don't know how much easier it can get to install linux anymore. Pick a major distro, any distro, pop in cd or dvd, answer a couple questions (i.e., keyboard layout, time zone, use entire disk (or freespace), username, password (type it twice), wait awhile, done). No endless install driver, reboot, install driver, reboot, install driver, reboot, install software, reboot. When linux is done, it's done for 90% of what people want -- surf net, read email, write papers. And adding the extra things just isn't that darn hard (e.g., in ubuntu, fire up synaptic and click little checkboxes and then press "install", similar process with Suse YaST, and I'm sure RH/Fedora is just as easy).

It is a bald faced lie to say linux is hard to install. The fact is, it's becoming SO darn easy that I fear linux is going to loose it's geek coolness factor -- anyone who can put a CD in a computer has all the skills necessary to install linux right now.

Re:Hey Mr. Comedian - enough with BSOD

[jasen666]

Who's fucking joking? I get BSOD's at home and at the office.
Sure, maybe less now than it did with NT4 or W2k, but it still BSOD's if you even sneeze at it.
And I'm not a MS hater, I'm an MCDBA. But I'm also realistic. Just running WoW at home now takes down my system. Haven't bothered tracing down the problem yet, mostly because I know I'll invariably end up having to reinstall XP yet again.

I wish I could laugh at the BSOD jokes.

Since you ask

[Lifewish]

Friday. It crashed. Twice.

That's on my company's Windows 2000 desktops, so that doesn't give me grounds to complain about XP. And I haven't used XP for about two years, since it started crashing on me. So my information may be out of date.

Re:Flavours?

[fishlet]

"It is a bald faced lie to say linux is hard to install."

Well I hope I'm not being redundant on someone elses comment here, but the trueness (or falseness) or your statement has everything to do with what you call a complete linux installation.

If you mean getting the linux kernel, a handful of common apps, and the X desktop at a standard resolution installed... then I agree with you 100%.

But, If you mean getting linux installed so that it can interface with my digital camera, connect seamlessly with my palm handheld, read my SD cards without playing games, or play encrypted DVD's without installing extra libraries.... then I'd have to disagree with you. All these things are much easier to get done in Windows.

That old Windows uptime myth again...

[Elbowgeek]

I've not had major stability issues with Windows since 2k. XP is very stable, and most programs which run under it are quite stable as well. That's not to say that *nix isn't just as good, for a helluva lot less money of course, but I find that Linux advocates trott that old saw about Windows lack of stability and repeat it like a mantra as if they were programmed to say it. Hmmm...

Re:Flavours?

[WhiteWolf666]

RHEL is, indeed, free.

The *only* thing you pay for is support.

Link here:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/eval/ [redhat.com]

You sign up for the 'evaluation'. You get the full install, and a one month subscription.

You do not get updates after one month.

With RHEL, you aren't paying for the software, you are paying for the support. Period.

More information:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-migration-l ist/2003-November/msg00025.html [redhat.com]

The source will always be avaliable from Redhat. Period. It's a free product.

Don't expect someone to wrap the package up for you and present it in a usable form, with free updates, though. They aren't under any license requirement, and they've already given you the full source. Don't you think its a little ungrateful to ask for more?

About the pre-built systems:

Wow. I wasn't aware of that. I just saw that on Dell's small business site. And you even save ~$75 per system, which is great. That's definitely a good thing. A caveats, however: you can't get a laptop like that. And you won't get proper hardware support (like dell's non-standard compliant ACPI implementations). Still, that's really just a small quibble.

I don't remember seeing that option before, but I guess its been awhile since I've shopped at Dell.

I have happily paraded HP's Linux laptop to people, however. Perhaps competition will reign in the future.

Re:just wondering...

[philg8]

You raise a valid point about differing products and prices. However, in the iPod example you give, the main differences are all about:
1) how big (physically) is the iPod and
2) how many songs does it hold? (Apple generally advertises number of songs instead of GB)

These two concepts are very simple for most people to understand. You can tell how big anything is just by looking at it, and cassettes came in 30, 60, and 90 minute lengths (I'm sure there are other examples), so consumers are accustomed to the idea of finite music space.

Creating differences in an operating system is a whole new world of trouble. First of all, even the technically skilled people who understand the differences will still have to research the differences. For people who aren't familiar with the inner workings of an OS this will pose an impossible task, and they will buy whatever Dell or Best Buy says they need.

Also, limitations in the software will not be restricted based on physical attributes (such as hard drive storage), but rather on whatever Microsoft decides should be functional.

"Sorry, to connect using ODBC you'll need at least a Small Business License." Of course, the Small Business will only connect to Jet DB (Access) sources, and Enterprise will be required for SQL Server connections. (Those are hypothetical examples of the top of my head). I always find limitations that are imposed only because I haven't forked over enough money are really annoying.