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| Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft Software
Category: Software
List Price: $269.99
Buy New: $145.00
You Save: $124.99 (46%)
New (39) Used (4) from $145.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  117 reviews
Sales Rank: 148
Format: Dvd-rom
Platform: Windows Vista
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Home Premium
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
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: March 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Sick Microsoft Experiment March 31, 2008
Service Pack 0 was a disaster, now we have SP1. Still a disaster. I almost get the impression that microsoft is being run by FEMA. Vista is still slow, still buggy, and still crashes. Since it would not run properly on a new dual core Athlon, with 4 gigs of RAM, I installed it on my new MAC Pro with 2 quad cores and 4 gigs of RAM. And it actually works well with boot camp. However. OSX works much better. So, thank you ill Gates for pushing me to buy a Mac.
 Still having fun finding new things in all the nooks and crannies of Vista March 29, 2008
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
Well after dragging my feet all these years I finally decided to do it. Yep I made the jump from XP to Vista. I saved the most hard to replace data on my jump drive incase any problems should arise.
I could not wait for the 64-bit version that just happens top be conveniently missing from this package. So after the installation I went to the net www.windowsvista.com to get a copy sent. Surprise the site said that there was no promotion available. I do not want a promotion; I want the 64 bit version. But wait there is an 800 number for help. I had the number dialed and calling before the phone got to my ear. I was just in time to hear a recording that said "Call during normal business hours." Oh well so much for the 64-bit version.
I placed the DVD in the drive and was happily loading the new system when it said "Hey thought you might want to know I can not tell what operating system you are using at the time so if you continue all your stuff will be lost." What a dilemma. I tried even using a recovery disk to place some missing files on the old system. Tried again to install and still no luck. Oh well I just decide to go for it.
From than point on it was a fun experience; everything loaded and took much better advantage of the hardware resources than did the old XP. Great Scot it even found my network printer on the fly. And with all the fears from people saying that Vista was slow and a resource hog, I was surprised to see everything just whizzing buy. Even the network was easer to install. Only answered four questions and voila email.
Now I am plugging in all the old programs and they are instilling and working with ease.
All this time suffering for nothing. Don't wait
Microsoft Office Accounting Professional 2008
 New and Improved March 28, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am truly enjoying the new Windows Vista Home Premium SP1. When Vista was first introduced my company purchased it and there were many issues. However, with the service pack, the home version is working beautifully. I love the new look and feel of my programs. I also love the added features in the Word program. As an author I am always looking for enhanced ways to produce my manuscripts. I recommend the Windows Vista Hoem Premium SPI to all with home computers.
Angelia Vernon Menchan
Author, Reviewer, Publisher
Nice look, great new features March 28, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's the same, but different. My first impression is that the new look is really well done. It is at first glance more like OSX, but still it has it's own identity and the more you interact with this OS, the better it feels. I especially love the flip feature where you can see all available open programs as stacked windows on the desktop. The start menu is easier to use. Also, it seems they have finally done something to the search feature as it is much faster to use.
Finally, on a more cirtical note, they have updated the built in security features of this system to an extreme... I can understand why the Mac commercials are so critical.
I had a frustrating time until I disabled the live one care (which was not easy to do) and changed the settings on what I call the "built in permission query for everything you try to do". I understand and appreciate the need for security, but the default settings are too much.
On a positive note, you will have control over what to turn on and off and it's just a matter of getting the settings just right for your preference. Overall, I give this product four stars. Good job. I look forward to using this OS on a daily basis!
 Windows ME Revisited? March 28, 2008
61 out of 73 found this review helpful
Let's get one thing straight right off the bat- I'm not a Microsoft hater. In fact, I've been very satisfied with XP from the start, and still am despite having had experience with other operating systems which are probably more advanced and streamlined. However, with the release of Vista I can't help but feel that this product is another 'interim OS' - a la Windows 98/98 Second Edition or Windows ME - that Microsoft put out for several reasons: 1) the fact that they haven't introduced a new OS in a long time, thus tempting users to look to other alternatives in search of new features. 2) as support for the fact that Windows is still their major cash cow 3) that Apple and Linux are finally starting to seriously threaten the OS stranglehold that Microsoft has held for so many years.
On point one, the last and- most would say- best OS Microsoft has released is Windows XP. Despite the fact that it's starting to show its age, I believe XP is a superior operating system to Vista for several reasons to be discussed later in detail. Nevertheless, it's been a good 7 years since XP was released, which is an a very long time in the software industry.
Point two is reinforced by the acknowledged fact that another Windows OS is already in development and is due out relatively soon (within the next 2-3 years) and the fact that most Vista sales are made from OEM distributors with the price included in the sticker cost. In many cases, end users have no choice at all for their operating system- you either get it with Vista, or you don't at all. Additionally, the retail package cost of the OS is unusually high- especially for the 'Ultimate' version which adds a few extra security and media features.
Point three is somewhat speculative, but there is some evidence pointing to its truth. The recent change of Mac hardware from the unique Motorola architecture to Intel-based might have riled some hardcore Apple fans, but it was a master-stroke from the business perspective. Now Mac users can run Windows in native mode while also benefiting from the superior Mac OS (still unavailable on non-Apple machines) and thus be able to break the 'gaming block' that Macs have been hobbled with previously. As to the Mac OS's general superiority, there really has never been any doubt- one merely has to see how much Vista attempts to mimic it to find proof of that. On the Linux front, it's really difficult to argue with free- and Linux is steadily improving both in terms of user-friendliness and capability. It has advanced to the point now that one no longer needs any understanding of the command line to use it, and most software- including many games- can be run on Linux.
Let's get down to examining the improvements from XP home to Vista home edition, which is what most people that would pay for upgrades are looking for. Bear in mind I haven't examined an enterprise edition and don't particularly care about business applications of Vista, since I still use XP Pro at work and have no intention of changing that.
Vista's user interface offers a new look and feel, which in anything but the lowest cost version is much more attractive than XP. It has translucent windows, animation effects, and new UI features including the 'Flip' in Premium edition which is a more visual approach to the old alt-tab interface used to switch between active applications and windows. There are also Windows Gadgets, which are small desktop apps, and a Sidebar that can contain Gadgets for quick use. Additionally, dialogs and windows- especially wizards- are standardized and more consistent in look and feel than in previous Windows versions. For pure Windows users, these will all be excitingly new features. However, they aren't actually new- Mac OS X has had all of these features in place for three or more years. This isn't in itself a bad thing, as these are generally good features. The only problem is they aren't implemented very well. Take the example of the translucent windows: put two windows side by side and they look very similar- at a glance it's very hard to tell which one is the active (or 'topmost') window- the only difference is a white line going around the border of the active one. In XP, the windows didn't look nearly as pretty but at least you never had any doubt which one was active. Additionally, the new look and feel comes at a rather punishing cost- the system requirements for Vista increase dramatically if these features are all enabled, and it's highly questionable whether a machine meeting the minimum requirements will be able to run Vista at anything approaching acceptable speed- let alone applications running ON Vista. This means that machines that are 3 or more years old should definitely not be upgraded to Vista, as they will be reduced to snail's pace. If you prefer, you can run Vista with the classic XP layout and look and feel, which makes it look very much like XP and has much better performance on slower machines. However, if you do this it begs the question- what's the point, then? You're essentially back to XP with some marginally useful new functionality, and a few hundred dollars out.
Security features are one of the main selling points of Vista. When you install any software that alters the system- including any and all software drivers and almost any serious applications- you will encounter at least one security popup. You have to explicitly click the Allow/Continue button to get it to proceed. There is no 'Always allow' option, so if you see the dialog once, you will see it again if you do the same thing. Theoretically, this is a great idea- it means a user can't do anything dangerous without seeing a warning. The problem is the warnings are often unclear, and a user won't know whether it's a real threat or not, and whenever one shows up they have to stop whatever they're doing and consider it (or not). Additionally these don't just show up during installations- this security also fires popup warnings whenever applications- including web apps- do anything that Windows construes as 'suspicious,' which is nigh on everything. Example: you plug in an external hard drive. Security warning; click continue. You browse to it and launch an installation batch file. Warning; click continue. The program asks you to register, and sends you to a site that has cookies. Warning; click continue. Within about 10 minutes of using Vista, I had seen more of these than I have on my Mac in 2 months, and that with relatively frequent OS updates too. And no, being an administrator doesn't do a thing in this regard, since Vista's security treats administrators as regular users (huh? exactly...) This is bad for two major reasons that are related: it's so annoying it'll make you spit and holler at the screen, and as a result it (ironically) doesn't do what it was meant to do- which is to stop bad stuff like viruses from taking the whole PC down. Users will get so used to just dismissing the popups that when a REAL threat appears, they will likely just dismiss it out of hand. You can save yourself the trouble and disable User Account Control, but then you're essentially back to XP. Once again, this leads us to that question- what's the point in upgrading then?
Vista includes new versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, as well as some additional apps for recording movies and (in Ultimate) backing up data. In my opinion these bundled Windows programs have never been better than third party apps- and since I don't have a great deal of experience using them I'll leave others to review them. Perhaps the most important new package Vista introduces is DirectX 10. In my admittedly biased gamer's mind, this is the only Vista feature even worth examining if you're considering upgrading. Windows has always been the OS of choice for gamers, and the fact that XP doesn't support (and never will according to Microsoft, though technically there isn't any reason it can't) the new version of DirectX means that gamers will probably be forced to upgrade eventually. For now, a handful of titles support DirectX 10 in addition to 9, though these are very few at this moment and there are still none that support only version 10. Some of these include Crysis, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict- to name a few. As is to be expected, version 10 adds a lot of improvements to graphical detail and image quality, and games that take advantage of these features look noticeably better. However, due to the fact that there simply aren't many available yet, it's debatable whether it's worth upgrading to Vista just to do this. It will likely be some years yet before the first DirectX 10-only games appear, so there is certainly no compelling need to upgrade immediately if you just want to play. In fact, upgrading for the sake of gaming is not without risk- and on that note...
Let's talk about software compatibility. Presumably, Vista is backwards compatible with anything that could run on XP. Realistically, it's anyone's guess what will work. Straight up, you can expect none of the drivers you use under XP to work with Vista. In fact, many drivers written FOR Vista don't work, or have very serious technical issues that include such nastiness as random blue screens of death and other unsavory results. I don't know whether this is a result of poor third party support or just the fact that Vista is so new, but no working drivers = no working hardware, which is bad news. In general, newer software and hardware tends to work decently, but if you're using older hardware and peripherals, you might be forced to upgrade those along with the OS. For gamers in particular, it's advisable you keep XP on a separate partition at the very least, since there are many known issues with Vista and older games- usually due to driver issues. These range from relatively minor things like graphical glitches, to games just plain not running. For most there are workarounds, but personally, I'm not the kind that likes to do research and work in order to play (and I think most aren't). Of course, if you don't care about anything but the latest titles, then this isn't a big deal- but in my experience most gamers like to revisit oldies for good times' sake (I certainly do). When running newer titles, there is another factor to keep in mind: If your hardware is borderline running on XP, you will likely need to upgrade your hardware to run the same games on Vista. This is because Vista is a resource hog compared to XP, especially in terms of RAM usage.
The bottom line is that those that have XP should probably not upgrade to Vista. It simply doesn't offer enough new and useful features to be worth the trouble- and can be a great deal of trouble indeed. What advances it does offer are also not all good; I personally think Vista is actually less user-friendly than XP, though admittedly I do have a great deal more experience with the latter.
For those that are looking to buy or build a new Windows machine and actually have a choice, the better OS is more debatable. For those that have little or no experience with Windows, I will be honest and say that Vista MAY be a better choice. I can't really say for sure because I'm definitely not such a person and don't know anyone that is, but if Microsoft continues to base its operating systems off the Vista model, it might be best to just get used to it. Additionally, for gamers looking toward the future and buying DirectX 10 compatible hardware, XP simply doesn't support it. Gamers are also presumably purchasing the newest hardware anyway- most of which works fine on the new OS. For those that are familiar with Windows and want a minimum of fuss (e.g. folks that work at home), I recommend XP instead of Vista because it's both more mature as a piece of software, and is generally a lot more like older Windows versions. Vista differs from previous releases of Windows enough that finding familiar functionality can be a pain, especially for power users or those that like to deal with low level configuration. Most of it is still there in one shape or form, but almost everything is renamed and moved. Aside from these and the above reasons, XP is substantially cheaper and uses far less resources (RAM/CPU/video/disk space). Especially if you aren't buying top-line hardware, this can make a very serious difference in overall performance.
It should be noted that Microsoft is always releasing updates, and Vista is no exception. Service Pack 1 is now available, and is essentially a huge collection of bug fixes, minor performance enhancements, and program tweaks- most of which have already been made available as downloaded hotfixes. Unless you've experienced one of the specific issues addressed, and for some reason haven't been using automatic updates, you will likely not see any significant changes. If you really want to know exactly what they changed, you can look it up in the Knowledge Base. The best I can say is, it doesn't look like they broke anything obvious with it, so there's no reason NOT to get SP1 if you already have Vista. Service packs are available from automatic updates, so this specific product is more of a convenience than a real 'new release.' Microsoft claims that service packs won't be used to make major changes to the OS, and in this case that's not good news. I believe it likely that the next release of Windows (currently known as 'Windows 7') will be when most of the big problems are addressed.
In conclusion, I believe Windows Vista is a tie-in to a 'real' operating system release, just like Windows ME was a stopgap between Windows 98 and XP. However, it's actually less polished than ME was- relatively speaking- and looks like it was rushed to market with many features untested or incomplete. In many ways, Vista is probably the most disappointing Windows release of all time despite the fact that it's technically more advanced and 'better' (at least in theory) than any other release. Maybe it's because of all the new and revolutionary features that were promised, and weren't delivered in the end, or perhaps we've all just been expecting too much after such a long development time. Vista isn't necessarily a bad product or a bad operating system- it does generally work, once you get past its quirks and get used to how it looks, and this is why I didn't give it the lowest rating. In fact, if it is evolved a bit I can see it becoming an excellent OS. However, due to its cost and the fact that in its current state it's hardly an improvement over XP, I really can't recommend it. Gamers are the only folks that should seriously consider upgrading, and at the moment there's no compelling need to. In the meantime, I'm looking for the next Windows release to see whether Microsoft is going to put out the true successor to XP.
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