| ![Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate FULL VERSION [DVD] [OLD VERSION]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418ejZRV7AL._SL500_.jpg)
| From: Microsoft Software
List Price: $399.95
Buy New: $100.00
You Save: $299.95 (75%)
New (34) Used (5) from $100.00
Rating:  150 reviews
Sales Rank: 1785
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Windows Xp, Windows Vista, Windows 2000
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Full Version
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Operating System: Windows Vista
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 1.6
MPN: 66R-00002
Model: 66R-00002
UPC: 882224172370
EAN: 0882224172370
ASIN: B000HCTYTE
Release Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 150
 Five Years And This Is It? January 31, 2007
Person (across the street)
34 out of 81 found this review helpful
For some time now Windows has been nagging customers about their new software. Well, not nagging, but over-advertising, should I say. I currently have XP. I will keep buying Windows's operating systems for the simple fact that not only are their OS's are cheaper, but are much, how to I put this, more intruitive to the internet world. I might as well be the very first person to "see" and play around with the Vista so far (just through reading reviews). Microsfot promises a much more stable and secure computer, two factors Mac has ALWAYS and probably will forever have above them. The question is, what really are they doing back there in Microsoft land? No offense to all the hype of the OS, I'm sure I will want to upgrade within the next two years but I must ask, how on earth is this consdiered better than XP?
Now there are many factotrs to an OS, this one not so complicated. Really the most unimpresive thing was that it was already made. And chances are, you own it. There's not much of a difference between XP and Vista other than some new features that may spike an impulse buy. But please BEFORE you do that, know what you are buying into. There are really only a few reasons to upgrade from XP to Vista.
1. You want to network with Windows. XP doesn't really have such a great networking stradegy, if it really is one to begin with. It is a way better OS than XP as far as linking computers together. This also makes it much easier to share a DSL internet connection, but even then XP has this feature, and its not that hard. Wireless networking also comes in, thanks to ethernet, Bluetooth, and other collabrations.
2. The way you open windows. And even then, is that really a reason to upgrade your version of Windows. Anyhow, it comes with a slick black/chrome scheme. Opening and minimizing Windows becomes more like a Mac. You can view your Windows like a flow or in 3D.
Otherwise, most of Vista is a true dissappoint.
Security is a big issue with Windows computers and you should always have Norton, McAfee, AVG, or some sort of third party anti-virus vendor. And in Vista, you still do, because much like its big brother XP, it is full of security holes. The firewall is really nothing more than the one you have with XP. It asks you when certain files try to download onto your computer, but that's about it. It doesn't really try to stop viruses or adware, something a Mac is virtually prone to. Otherwise, same old, same old. Firewall, and that's about it as far as what Windows offers for security. They also have their Spyware detector, but Ad-Aware is not only cleaner and more efficent but has a longer list of definitions. Lame. And the look, nothing more than having your Windows XP taskbar, menus, and start button black. Nothing at all has yet to be added on to it. No dock, no easy search, no nothing. Just your same old XP look, only black and chrome. Yawn. (Besides, can't you get those for free online?) The so called "Aero" graphics window frames are nothing special. The only interesting feature is that you can mouse over the items you have open. Lame. Also, no multimedia enhancements. Same Windows Media Player and same DVD maker. Lame. The so called backup program is awful. You have to back up a whole thing of files, like "My Computer" or "Documents". Lame. Also know if you are planning on upgrading Vista you must have a pretty good computer or your sstem will just keep on crashing. Of course XP does that enough. Not very comforting to know Vista does that more than XP. Lame.
Oveall, not a needed upgrade for your Windows XP system. Some networking features are nice, and the look is slightly appealing, but otherwise it's Windows XP packaged into a different box. The enw security features aren't really anything, nothing new with multimedia, and the new backup program is a complete dud. Keep your XP system, this isn't worth the extra hundred dollars. 2 stars.
 Smooth Install--Excellent Performance February 3, 2007
G. Edwards (Fort Bragg, CA United States)
33 out of 54 found this review helpful
Having bought and installed every version of Windows this installation and upgrade (from Windows Home XP) was the smoothest. Microsoft's Beta testing appears to have been very successful. By the way, I am just an average home computer user.
Vista first inventories the software and hardware and indexes whatever files are needed for the transfer. Then it installs, which took about an hour in my case on a Celeron D CPU at 2.13 Gigahertz and a little over 1G of memory, with the standard Dell-Intel graphics chips (not exactly a high-end computer).
The look and feel and the interfaces and integration of Vista with other software is awesome. The software has killer diagnostic tools that are a cut above the usual third party software algorithms--for example, Vista remembers what has been tried and tells you so if you try to repeat a recommended "fix". I liked, and installed two "gadgets" in the left sidebar--a floating office--style clock and a calendar.
All the software on my machine functioned after the install and reboot, even software Vista identified as possibly not working--in my case, the Intellipoint mouse software. It did work just fine.
The install did kill my broadband internet connection for a brief time; and after going 'round and 'round with the idiots at Adelphia/Comcast customer service--who stated that company modems did not work with Vista, and that they are not ready to offer help for their customer running Vista (do not believe them)--I fixed the connection after discovering (through a Vista diagnostic tool) that competing firewalls from Windows Security Center and Windows Live One Care were blocking inbound streams.
In fact, Vista has a very nice feature in its Windows Security Center (that helped me fix my broadband connectivity) which tells you when you have competing security features enabled. In my case, it was two firewalls, one of which (Windows Lived One Care), was set to "restricted". When I removed this firewall, and left the Security Center firewall enabled everything worked perfectly.
By the way, despite what I read elsewhere, my iTunes runs smoothly. I also have lots of third party software (defraggers, spy removal software, password software, etc.) on my computer, and all of it, except the well-known buggy and unstable System Mechanic 7, operates without problems, and did so without having to download "patches".
I believe Microsoft did a great job on producing and testing Vista. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to move beyond XP.
 Not ready for Primetime.... April 3, 2007
Steven M Menapache (Bel Air, Maryland United States)
29 out of 36 found this review helpful
I bought Vista to get the inevitable familiarity over with as early as possible and what I discovered was an operating system not even close to being compatible yet. Half if not 80% of all routers are not Vista-ready yet, so you can't get a network running for at least a few more months. Any accesories you own with your system no longer work unless they're compatible.. (ie, printers, scanners, burners, etc) so you not only buy an operating system, you have to buy an entirely new set of hardware to go with it. Majority of my programs did not work with Vista, be it Adobe software, Maya, Poser and God forbid any games you own like Warcraft. For the expense and complete hassel, it's not worth owning until eveything is "Ready" (which will probably be a year from now) Save your money. - I returned my copy.
 Update: save your cash - stick with XP.. January 31, 2007
Dallas Electronics Fan (Dallas,TX.)
26 out of 38 found this review helpful
Another UPDATE - 06/15/2008: I replaced my pc with a quad core Q6600, 4gb's of ram (3.3 useable with 32bit Vista), a 150gb Raptor drive and Shuttle barebones system. I'd planned on building a new computer anyway so the expense wasn't directly tied to trying to make Vista run faster. Now that SP1 has bee released and various other updates, I can finally say Vista's pretty good. Smooth, reliable, fast and good looking. The catch is that you need a fast machine. The moral of this story? don't be an early adopter of a new o/s.
UPDATE - 05/17/2007: Unfortunately, I let my enthusiasm for an updated o/s affect my first opinion of this product. After living with Vista Ultimate for about four months, I can't recommend switching from XP. Especially if you have anything less than a fast dual core processor, a minimum of 2GBs of ram, a video card in the range of a Nvidia 7 series or higher. The driver support has improved over the last few months and the o/s is almost as stable as XP. My biggest complaint is speed. Prior to 'upgrading' to Vista, XP ran very quickly on this machine. This with an Athlon 4000+ and 1GB of RAM. Boot times were very fast. Programs started quickly, file transfers were quick, windows snapped open and minimized in a blink. In other words, XP had an overall snappiness that I really appreciated. Vista on the same machine runs like a '68 Volkswagen Van. Boot times were slow - very slow. At least twice as long as XP. Programs were slow to start and close. File transfers are slow. Certain programs ran so slowly I stopped using them. Webroot's Spysweeper for example. With XP in this machine, a complete system scan might take 10-15 minutes. It took somewhere around two hours with Vista. Juice, a podcast receiver, worked but consumed so many cpu cycles that the machine was unuseble while downloading new podcasts. In fairness to MS, slow running, third party apps can't always be blamed on MS. It could be that the software developers haven't done their job and tweaked to support Vista. I tried ratcheting back the visual effects, I increased my ram to 2GB's, I used a 2GB flash card for ready boost and carefully tweaked start-up programs and processes. Nothing seemed to help until I upgraded my cpu to an Opteron 185. I also installed a faster hard drive. Now after ~4 months, I finally have a machine that approches the performance of my old XP rig but I had to spend hundreds of dollars for the pleasure. Bottom line, I can't think of a single reason to move to Vista from XP. Forget the hype about Vista being more secure. It is straight out of the box but if you're using a security suite with XP (ie.Kaspersky, Trend Micro, Norton..), Firefox and use a little common sense, Vista has no real-world advantage over XP. Bottom line, save your cash and stay with XP (or Ubuntu or Apple for that matter). I'm really disappointed with Vista - I wish I would have saved my cash. Apparently a lot of Dell customers feel the same way as the Dell website offers recently started offering XP as an alternative to Vista. I wish Amazon's review system let me change the original star rating. If it did, I'd change it to 1. I'm really disappointed in Microsoft - six years and this is what the consumer gets. Microsoft has officially jumped the shark with the release of Vista.
Original review:
Buy the oem FULL version. You will save $$$. Search Amazon for "Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit for System Builders [DVD]". I didn't know Amazon sold this so I purchased it from another vendor for 199.00. Amazon's price is very close at 219.00. The only downside to the oem version is a POSSIBLE enforcement of the single use license. Supposedly you are limited to only one computer for the life of the hardware. In other words, if your computer is destroyed, the license seems to say you'll have to buy another copy of Vista. There's a lot of chatter about this but I suspect that Microsoft will honor the license as long as there are reasonable circumstances involved. I'd guess that if in a year or two when I build another pc, it probably won't be a problem to use the oem license. Regardless, caveat emptor. The vendor I purchased from jumped the gun and started selling Vista about a week ahead of the official launch. I installed and have been playing around with it for a few days now. I did a clean install which went fairly smoothly and quickly. Certainly less than 30 minutes. Right off the bat there were updates from Microsoft. First impressions: driver support isn't quite there yet. If you have any peripherals that are a couple years old or are from smaller vendors, you may find yourself out of luck for a while. I use an M-audio external soundcard that M-audio doesn't even have a beta driver for yet. At least two programs I like and use regularly won't run in Vista. Vista has an XP Service Pack 2 compatibility mode but this didn't help in those two cases. Luckily, Firefox installed painlessly and works very smoothly. The new Vista security features are nice and are very much 'in your face' but not in a bad way. The warnings are necessary for the average consumer in my opinion. The overall look and feel of Vista is somewhat similar to OSX from Apple. From the genie effect of minimized windows, widgets (Microsoft calls them Gadgets) and an overall look and feel not unlike the Apple Aqua interface. I wish the look was a little more anti-Apple if only to demonstrate some individuality. Vista appears to be a solid, reliable, good looking and well protected o/s. However, at this point I can't think of a compelling reason to recommend moving from XP to Vista. When XP was released, the killer app was stability - XP is leagues ahead of 98/ME in that area. If you're currently using XP service pack 2, update regularly, not running in admin mode by default, use a two way firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware and using a little common sense (all these things apply to Vista and to a somewhat lesser degreee, OSX), moving from XP to Vista doesn't seem to yield any dramatic security improvements. Security is supposed to be the killer-app in Vista for the average consumer. Vista is better looking and makes for a smoother and more pleasant computing experience but it's not a must-have. If you can't resist, I'd wait at least 3 months for the driver support to firm up or make sure beforehand that your peripherals are supported. The hardware requirement is more modest than what I had come to expect based on reviews. I'm using a AMD 4000+ (2.4 Ghz), 1 GB of RAM, an Nvidia 7800 GTX, nForce 4 m/b and a 7800 rpm hard drive. This is probably a higher performing machine than average but not exceptional by current standards. Vista runs very smoothly with programs opening and running a little faster than XP. A lot of people are recommending 2GB of ram but 1 seems to be fine in my case. Using the Vista CPU and RAM performance gadget, RAM useage rarely exceeds 60%.
The Cost is Ridiculous! February 16, 2007
Douglas Brown
24 out of 37 found this review helpful
Regardless of the details, good or bad, of the operating system, it's silly expensive! The Premium Upgrade versions force you to install it on top of XP. Wow... isn't that great! One of the most aggregious examples of Corporate Greed I've seen in years!
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