Gentlemen, I need some advice. I am considering making the jump to Windows 7. Looking at the editions available at Windows.com, there are the typical 3 editions, Home, Professional, and Ultimate. Now since all editions are 64 bit, what edition would you recommend.I have 3 systems at home. My FSX system, running on XP Home (32bit), which has 4 G's of Ram. Now I know the 32 bit doesn't use all 4 Gigs, however it is using the 3.2 Gigs that a 32 bit system can use. My laptop is my FSX network system, running my apps for FSX, this sytem has Vista Home 32 bit and 4 gigs of Ram. My wife's system is running XP Home 32 bit, also 4 gigs of Ram.Now the question I have. MS is offering a Windows 7 Home Premium x 3 licenses for 149.99 (Upgrade, which I can use). http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windo...ine_shop_FamilyNowing the differences of the editions. I see numerous people saying that Win7 Professional is the way to go. However, they justify this because of the Win XP compatiblity. Researching this utility of Win7, I see it is for productivity programs. In no way am I running any type of productivity programs for a business. It seems these people may be confused on the effectiveness of this utility.http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7...ws-xp-mode.aspxWhat are your thoughts and recommendations?

I'm no boffin, but I'm happy with my Win 7 x64 Home Professional install. I've set up a dual boot with XP Pro SP3 so I don't need a virtual XP. I've also heard (but bear in mind I may be wrong) but a virtual OS can't use the 3D portion of your graphics card. I'm happy to continue to use the real thing!If you get the Home edition, you can upgrade over the NET to one of the higher editions direct from the OS anyway ('Windows Update Anytime' or something like that) as all Ultimate features are installed on every Win7 model, but the 'extra features' are disabled until you hand over the coin.Cheers, SLuggy

You will only need the HP Edition.Rod.

Home Premium would be the de-facto edition for home users, yourself included. I went with Professional because I have a need for the "Remote Desktop Connection" capability that Pro has. I am also a tinkerer, and very well might end up with a little domain in my house, so I may also need to ability to join a domain down the road. Ultimate edition adds in some additional networking tools and the "BitLocker" encryption capability, which is a bit of a novelty in the face of freeware encryption tools like TrueCrypt. All three editions will have the same exact system performance - the only changes are with their extended capabilities with regards to networking and such. If you do buy the Home Premium edition, and find that you need an advanced networking tool which Professional has, you can perform an in-place "Anytime Upgrade" which effectively "turns on" those features. There's a cost for that update, but it would be on par with the price difference between Home Premium and Professional, +/- a few bucks. -Greg

I'm no boffin, but I'm happy with my Win 7 x64 Home Professional install. I've set up a dual boot with XP Pro SP3 so I don't need a virtual XP. I've also heard (but bear in mind I may be wrong) but a virtual OS can't use the 3D portion of your graphics card. I'm happy to continue to use the real thing!If you get the Home edition, you can upgrade over the NET to one of the higher editions direct from the OS anyway ('Windows Update Anytime' or something like that) as all Ultimate features are installed on every Win7 model, but the 'extra features' are disabled until you hand over the coin.Cheers, SLuggy

Here's my story: I moved from Vista 64 Home Premium to W7 Professional. First the good: Its definately lighter. I see a much lower idle usage on memory and CPU (system is an i7 rig with 6GB in RAM). I had expected a relatively easy migration. However, you should note that moving from one version of Vista to a different version of W7 is the same as moving from XP, in that you have to do a clean install, which sort of wipes your hard drive and moves the entire contents of the old system to windows.old. The instructions say this will require you to reinstall all your programs. I had backed up the contents to my bulk storage internal drive and treid running them there and many things seemed to run pretty well, so I had hoped to be able to move many of the programs back to the old location and essentially trick the OS. This approach worked for many things unrelated to this forum like my SkyCaddie software, Citrix VPN (work at home) and other lighter programs. All the MS products, however, required a reinstall (office 2003, FSX, etc.) FSX reinstalled ok, but SP2 wasn't reinstalling for reasons I can't entirely determine but think it may be a C++ issue. (I plan to try again tonight.) The PMDG add-ons worked (747X, MD-11, JS41), but the load managers wouldn't fire with a side-by-side error. I reinstalled the 747X (after first restoring my email archive .pst files as part of the Office re-install). This reinstalled C++ 2008 (and not the 2005 that FSX uses) and now that automatically fixed the MD-11 load manager. I'm hoping SP2 will-reinstall now. I like the OS, but the migration was harder than it needed to be.