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Windows Vista, Home Premium Edition with Service Pack 1, Upgrade Version (PC) | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft
Category: Software
List Price: £79.99
Buy New: £59.99
You Save: £20.00 (25%)
New (9) Used (5) from £55.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 37
Format: Dvd-rom
Platform: Windows Vista
Media: DVD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 1.5
MPN: 66I-02388
Model: 66I-02388
UPC: 882224661324
EAN: 0882224661263
ASIN: B0013O54P8
Release Date: April 4, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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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 32 more reviews...
 Not a worthwhile upgrade November 12, 2008
A few months ago I bought a new laptop which came with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. I've now had the opportunity to compare Vista to my desktop PC's XP installation. In summary Vista doesn't make a compelling upgrade. Memory usage is considerably higher, the default User Account Control setup is so overbearing that I disabled it completely and from the perspective of the end user the new features seem to be mostly related to visual tarting up and transparency effects. These new features add nothing much to productivity. The frequency and volume of critical security patches to apply seems to continue as with XP. There are some useful features but most of these can be added to XP by using existing free applications. Not a worthwhile upgrade.
 A few irritations but more stable than XP SP 3 so worth trying October 26, 2008
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.
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.
If it ain't broke... October 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I imagine that the people most likely to read reviews of an operating system are those who are thinking of upgrading their system, rather than those buying a new computer. In other words, this review is intended for those who are thinking of replacing XP with Vista on a perfectly good computer. I would strongly recommend that you hang on to XP while you can.
I am not a Microsoft basher. I think XP is an excellent operating system. Once a few teething troubles were sorted out, XP became a reliable, easy-to-use operating system that could take any amount of abuse. I have no doubt that after a few more updates Vista too will become dependable, safe and idiot-proof and the bugs will be sorted out. I don't mind minor bugs too much in a new system of this complexity - they're to be expected. My grumble is that Microsoft have taken some of the best features of XP and changed them - for the worse.
The only real improvement I can really see is that Vista looks marvellous. There is a display pane which gives you an overview of the contents of many file types without you having to open them. The sounds that herald failures or errors are far less annoying than those in XP. The colours are lovely too. And...well that's about it.
Here are the main annoyances, in no particular order.
Searching in XP was easy. You typed in the name of a file, specified your search criteria and you always found your file if it existed. Alas, Vista is very different. Search is done by indexing, which means that although the searches are much faster your initial search won't find files in all but the most obvious locations. To find a file in Program Files for example, you have to look once, then wait for "no files found" before you can change the parameters for a more extensive search. Worse still, Service Pack 1 removed Search from the Start menu, and you have to go through a long rigmarole to get it back.
The Run command is missing from the Start menu too. You can restore it but why couldn't they have left it there?
There is no Network Connections folder - one of XP's more use features was this folder where you could check and modify your internet connections all in one place. You can get it back, but it involves a registry tweak.
Windows Update in XP installed the majority of the updates while the computer was running. Vista dies this on shutdown and startup - which means that if updates have downloaded and you do a restart you can wait over 10 minutes to get your computer running again.
Finally, there's User Account Control (UAC). This means that whenever you install something or go anywhere near the system files, you have to give permission twice before you can carry on. I can see that this might be useful for beginners, but it's maddening when you're a bit more advanced and you can't do anything without Windows querying it. This feature can be disabled but Vista will keep nagging you to turn it on again.
It's not that Vista is bad - it's just that they've changed some of XP's better features for the worse. If XP hadn't existed I'd probably think it was wonderful, and despite my moans I do appreciate that a lot of work has to go into creating something like this and the result won't be to everyone's taste. I can't help feeling the same way as I did when my favourite family-owned country pub was taken over by a well known bland chain. If you have to buy a new PC you'll get Vista and it won't ruin your life, but if you're running XP and happy with it I'd hang on to your money.
EDIT: I have removed a couple of negative comments as on rereading this as I felt I was being a little unfair.
 Decent OS; I have no desire to switch October 17, 2008
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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
First off, I'm not a Microsoft worshipper, but I'm not into bashing them just for the sake if it either.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't recall the installation taking all day long either as some people have claimed.
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.
Of course, it looks real pretty too.
There are some gripes though.
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.
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.
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.
Anyway four stars not five, due to minor gripes.
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