Hello.
I need to buy windows 7, because my licence does not work anymore (got it through my fathers work).
Right now I use windows 7 ultimate, and I am very satisfied with that because of the small things such as having more icons on your desktop.
But win7 ultimate costs alot compared to home basic for example.
Which of the editions should i buy - does it really make that much of a difference?
You can find differences between the versions here. But IMHO unless you want XP mode, then just go with Home Premium.
Try Mac OS 7.
Depending on your hardware, you may want to go 64-bit as well. I tried Win7 32-bit and was hugely annoyed by it’s 2gb ram cap. I switched to 64-bit and am much happier now.
Of course, I really only use my Win7 partition for playing games and testing my own. I generally stick to OSX for everything else. Naturally, this may not be an option for you however.
No, try MS-DOS from a bunch of floppies, and then buy Windows 7 Home Premium.
Masochist, why do you seem so eager to give Microsoft your hard earned money? Install Linux/Ubuntu, and if you don’t like it, then buy Windows 7. Never give your money to Apple, they gave vendor-lockin a brand new meaning.
RUNS
no reason to run away, you just stated the facts.
I just want to note that he asked for what version of Windows 7 he should buy, not what Linux distro or version of Mac OS. Lets not turn this topic into an OS war.
The 2gb cap is only with Windows 7 Starter, the lowest version for low-end hardware and emerging markets. All of the other 32-bit versions allow up to 4gb of ram, although typically you will only get about 3.2gb as much of the address space is used for other things. You can see more here.
If your PC can be upgraded to hold more then 4gb of ram, then I’d also recommend 64-bit. Simply because there is simple very little reason not to. But in my experience the majority of users don’t need more then 4gb of ram (unless your running FireFox /joke).
BitTorrent FTW 
Fixed that for you.
RAR RAR froth.
[quote]The 2gb cap is only with Windows 7 Starter, the lowest version for low-end hardware and emerging markets. All of the other 32-bit versions allow up to 4gb of ram, although typically you will only get about 3.2gb as much of the address space is used for other things.
[/quote]
It’s interesting that Microsoft says what they do. All I know is that when i run Windows 7 32-bit Professional, for my memory it says “4gb (2gb usable),” and the hard-drive thrashing and terrible performance would seem to agree. If I switch to 64-bit, all the bells and whistles suddenly light up and are usable.
IIRC that’s a limitation of some motherboards (typically the early 64bit ones where 32bit compatibility was still a bit ropey).
That would make sense, as I’m on an “older” 2006 Mac Pro. Funny that Apple supports 32-bit Win 7 on it and not 64-bit though (I had to do the installer work-around trick to get 64-bit on here).
Anyway… sounds like my initial point is valid though: depends on your hardware. 
Try Mac OS 7. After about 30mins trying to set up a modern java development environment and anything else you might want to use your computer for, you’ll think a brain tumour’s a birthday present.
Don’t use the games card, even as a joke. Currently more games for the Mac then ever before, but it’s nothing compared to the number of titles on Windowz.
It’s not meant as a joke. I grew up on Mac, so these are the games I played as a kid. They still feel so much better than the majority of modern games. I loves them. Mac had a far better shareware following during the Mac OS 7 days, which is what I played. Many of the modern indie game vets were Mac shareware devs back in the day.
But I admit, DosBOX I also have installed for classic games (as it has more games available), but I didn’t grow up with most of these so they’re not as meaningful to me.
@Topic:
Can you get one with an academic license?
Though as others have said, you should really contemplate what you need.
Otherwise, and I am just saying this because I find the Windows packaging scheme idiotic: Maybe you can really consider a different OS.
Heck, you could get a minimal Win7 for games and like but do your work on a dual-booted Linux install.
You could even virtualize the bought Win7 inside of the Linux install.
@OS war:
I also grew up with Apple, but won’t touch their products any more. Not because of hw/sw, but because of their politics.
Not to mention OS-X IS some kind of derivative of a *nix derivative.
I personally would recommend GNU/Linux to anyone that does not have really special requirements.
And since Ubuntu does not have ‘an Office’, they shy away from it.
Most of the time people only look for products, not needs.
ala ‘You don’t need Word, you need a word processor.’
[quote=“OverKill,post:18,topic:35369”]
Yes you can. Lots of universities are signed up to the MSDNAA allowing you to receive 100s of copies of commercial Microsoft software for free. Pretty much every piece of software they make, except the main Office apps, is on there. Typically with most versions. I even have less known stuff like Windows Server for High Performance Computing and XP Embedded.
As a student this is one great thing about MS, the tonnes of software they give us. For example the only thing I’ve ever received from Sun was an out of date copy of OpenSolaris (which is free anyway).
The reason i want win7, more than ubuntu and mac is because of software.
I like 3D production and video editing, and my software for that doesnt run on Ubuntu, or Mac.
Thanks for the link to compare
