Difference between Windows 7 Home, Professional and Ultimate

Find out which flavor is right for you

If you are running Windows XP or Windows Vista and are thinking about making the switch to Windows 7, you might be wondering what’s the difference between all the different versions. Unlike OS X, which has one version for everyone, Windows tries to break it down into several groups with different price points. Depending on what you will be using your computer for, you may only need the Home version or you may need Ultimate.

There are actually 6 different versions of Windows 7, but we’ll only worry about 3 because the rest are not really available for consumers to buy. There is Windows 7 Starter, which is usually on netbooks. Windows 7 Home Basic is available in emerging markets and not here in the US. And Windows 7 Enterprise is sold through volume licensing to companies and institutions.

In this post, I’ll talk about the differences between Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. Note that if you buy the most basic version of Windows, you can still upgrade at any time using Windows Anytime Upgrade. Basically, the Home version includes Professional and Ultimate, but those extra features will only be installed when you purchase it. You can run Anytime Upgrade from within Windows itself.

To get a quick overview of the differences, you can always go to the following page from Microsoft:

I find their comparison a bit too simplified and not very clear cut, especially if you want to know all the extra features of each version. This chart just goes over some very basic points, most of which are useless like “improved desktop navigation” and “Internet Explorer 8”.

I’ll try to give a more complete listing of what features are missing or added to each version. Let’s start off with Home Premium first since that forms the base of all other versions.

Home Premium

Here are the various points about Home Premium:

Professional

In addition to the points mentioned above, Professional also has the following features and services:

Ultimate

There are only a few extra features in Ultimate that are useful for consumers. Most of the additional features in Ultimate are for IT Professionals.

So even though Ultimate sounds great, it’s really not useful for the average consumer. Even to a degree, Professional also is not super useful for the average user. It’s probably best to get Home Premium and then upgrade to Professional or Ultimate if you ever need to. Hopefully, Windows 8 does not have even more versions to choose from!

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications.Read Aseem’s Full Bio

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Difference between Windows 7 Home, Professional and Ultimate#

Home Premium#

Professional#

Ultimate#