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Windows Vista, Home Premium Edition with Service Pack 1 (PC) | 
| From: Microsoft
Category: Software
List Price: £167.99
Buy New: £138.61
You Save: £29.38 (17%)
New (8) from £138.61
Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 60
Format: Dvd-rom
Platform: Windows Vista
Media: DVD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: 66I02387
Model: 66I-02387
UPC: 882224661256
EAN: 0882224661256
ASIN: B0013O54OE
Release Date: April 4, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
Windows Vista Home Premium is the operating system for homes with advanced computer needs. It will help you use your laptop or desktop PC more effectively as well as enable you to enjoy new, exciting digital entertainment experiences-all with the benefit of added security and reliability. Whatever you choose to do with your home PC, Windows Vista Home Premium will deliver a more complete and satisfying computing experience. Main Features:New user interface - Windows Vista Home Premium has a new user interf...
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 A few irritations but more stable than XP SP 3 so worth trying October 26, 2008
Dean J. Marshall (Hants, UK)
I have been using XP for more years than I can remember and I recently girded my loins and purchased a laptop with Vista Home Premium and I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised. My lower spec dual core laptop with Vista seems to have better performance than my much higher spec quad core desktop running XP. I would also say that Vista is more robust and I have not yet had a program stop responding, which is a common occurrence with XP. I find Vista's need to confirm your permission to do virtually anything on the machine a bit of a pain but in general , transferring across to using Vista from XP is painless. The only problem I have had is with networking Vista to XP and I still have to resolve this issue. br / br /I purchased my Laptop with Vista installed so I have no experience of the upgrading process from XP so in general I would say if you want to have a Vista experience then purchase the Premium Home edition and try it out on a secondary machine, you may well be pleasantly surprised. A slightly cautious Recommendation. br / br /
 Decent OS; I have no desire to switch October 17, 2008
Philip Tomlinson
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Frankly, I love Vista. While the minimum system requirements are higher than XP, they are by no means unreasonable, and the result is an OS that's easily as fast as Linux or OS X, and one that is much better laid out as well. br / br /Small touches abound. The start menu has been condensed into one box instead of opening a potentially gigantic list of programs, and discrete info and link boxes are peppered throughout, making it infinitely easier to slip from one related task to another. A particularly nice touch is that the address bar showing your folder location includes a drop down arrow for every folder you've had to go through to reach it, with a list of all the folders contained within them, meaning that you can navigate back through into another folder with ease. It is much like the layout of OS X's folders in that respect, yet compresses it into a much more compact and just as functional design. br / br /Functionality is a mixed bag, but usually for good reason; some old programs will find themselves unable to run on Vista's version of their dependencies, but the vast majority of programs can be made to run with compatibility mode. By this point Vista compatible drivers are standard, and shouldn't present a problem at all. Moreover, troubleshooting problems is vastly improved; with wireless problems in particular, XP was notorious for clamming up as to why it was refusing to work, resulting in a protracted search for a solution. At worst Vista is able to angle in on the general area of the problem, and at best will offer a direct fix. It's a hell of a lot better than the previous Windows favourite, 'dump everything and start over'. br / br /Perhaps I'm simply used to the old Windows problems, but Vista hasn't presented any particular problem for me. Viruses have been very rare, crashes infrequent and mysterious errors few and easily solved, usually by Vista itself. The OS hasn't been a barrier to user accessibility as previous Windows versions have been, and the streamlined design works like a dream. And as always, the sheer popularity of Windows means that it comes out top for overall compatibility with the biggest range of file formats, software and hardware, from the most common to the most obscure. br / br /Be warned: User Account Control is the most horrible invention known to man, comprising a 'security feature' that essentially asks you if you want to execute the program you've just clicked on, every single time you open it. You WILL learn to just click through it automatically, rendering it useless, and you WILL hate it. Make sure the first thing you do before anything else is to head into Control Panel and turn it off. Otherwise, I'm happy to say that Vista is an excellent OS, much better than XP and a perfectly acceptable contender to both OS X and Linux. It depends what your want from your machine; nonetheless, it would be a mistake to overlook Vista as being another buggy version of Windows.
Don't know what all the moaning is about October 14, 2008
Brian Reginald Martin (UK)
First off, I'm not a Microsoft worshipper, but I'm not into bashing them just for the sake if it either. br / br /Initially I listened to the negative comments on Amazon and the net and decided not to upgrade. But when I first encountered it on a laptop at work, I found myself thinking Vista wasn't so bad after all. So in the end I decided to upgrade my home PC and am glad I did and wouldn't consider going back to XP. So let's look at the usual complaints. br / br /You DO need a powerful and compatible PC. If in doubt you can download a utility from Microsoft to check your current hardware. I would recommend this. I suspect that a lot of people are moaning because they didn't check first. br / br /Backwards compatibility is not as bad as they say although it has some surprises in that old software I expected to fail actually works better under Vista (games) and stuff I expected to work has "known Compatibility Issues" (such as, can you believe it, Microsoft's own Visual Studio 2005). There are ways of overcoming these issues, however. br / br /It's at least as reliable as XP. I have not experienced any crashes yet. A recommendation here is to make sure you have the latest drivers for sound and video cards etc. br / br /The User Account Control (UAC) features have narked a lot of people but I don't find them annoying at all. You only tend to get nagged when attempting to do things that are considered a risk. During normal program use you're allowed to just get on with it. br / br /I don't recall the installation taking all day long either as some people have claimed. br / br /There are numerous new things that make using the PC much easier, such as better searching, a links facility in explorer and the open/save dialogs to frequently used folders and many more. Installation of software when running as a restricted user is now better; you get a dialog prompting for an administrator password unlike XP where it just fails. br / br /Of course, it looks real pretty too. br / br /There are some gripes though. br / br /Forget using the built in backup and restore centre. I won't go into why it's crap but do yourself a real favour by buying a third party solution like I did and get something that actually does what a backup program should do. Oh, by the way, the Vista backup utility is incompatible with those you did under XP so you'll have to download a utility from MS that will enable you to retrieve an old backup if you need to. br / br /The locations of certain folders (such as pictures, documents etc.) have changed. This is probably something else that is annoying everyone, but I hardly think it warrants damning the whole OS. Will confuse those less IT savvy than some, however. br / br /So to sum up, Vista is good, but not perfect. Thing is, its detractors can't cling to XP for ever: MS are trying to phase it out so there will come a point in the when a switch will have to be made in order to receive support in the form of service packs and drivers. br / br /Anyway four stars not five, due to minor gripes. br /
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