Product Description

Windows Vista Ultimate is the flagship edition of Windows Vista across consumer and small business desktop PCs and mobile PCs. The primary user of Windows Vista Ultimate is the individual, such as a small business owner, who has a single PC to use both at home and at work. This edition includes all of the features available in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Enterprise. Windows Vista Ultimate is the first operating system that combines the advanced infrastructure of a business-focused operating system, the productivity of a mobility-focused operating system, and the digital entertainment features of a consumer-focused operating system. For users who want their PC to be great for working at home, on the go, and at the office, Windows Vista Ultimate is the no-compromise operating system that provides it all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #325 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 66R-00002
• Released on: 2007-01-30
• Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000
• Format: DVD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .75 pounds

Features

• Mobility-based operating system meets all your computing needs whether you're working from home, working on the road, or searching for entertainment options
• Combines all the features of a business-focused operating system, all the efficiency features of a mobility-focused operating system, and all of the digital entertainment features of a consumer-focused operating system
• Remotely connect to business networks; Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption provides improved levels of protection against theft for your important business data whether you are at home, on the road, or in the office
• Delivers all of the entertainment features available in Windows Vista Home Premium; includes everything you need to enjoy the latest in digital photography, music, movies, analog TV, or even HDTV
• Ideal for both business and home entertainment use

Amazon.com
The most comprehensive edition of Windows Vista, Windows Vista Ultimate (DVD-ROM) is the first operating system that combines all of the advanced infrastructure features of a business-focused operating system, all of the management and efficiency features of a mobility-focused operating system, and all of the digital entertainment features of a consumer-focused operating system.

Windows Sidebar gives you quick access to gadgets like picture slide shows, Windows Media Player controls, or news headlines. You pick the gadgets you want to see in Windows Sidebar. View larger.

Use Flip 3D to navigate through open windows using the scroll wheel on your mouse. View larger.

Compare Windows Vista editions.

Use Instant Search to quickly find the information you need. View larger.

Windows Vista Aero provides spectacular visual effects such as glass-like interface elements that you can see through.

The redesigned Windows Media Center in Windows Vista lets you enjoy your media throughout your home, even on your Xbox 360. View larger.

For the person who wants one operating system that is great for working from home, working on the road, and for entertainment, Windows Vista Ultimate is a no-compromise operating system that lets you have it all.

Easier, Faster Access to Information
Windows Vista Ultimate features Windows Aero, a new interface that delivers higher levels of efficiency for any business user. This easy-to-use interface makes it a snap to navigate through the operating system and from application to application. Most importantly, Windows Aero helps you juggle multiple tasks at once by providing a three-dimensional, real-time, animated view of all your open applications and documents. And for those businesses that do work in other countries, Windows Vista Ultimate supports all worldwide interface languages.

Breakthrough Windows Vista Experience
Designed to help you feel confident in your ability to view, find, and organize information and to control your computing experience, all editions of Windows Vista introduce a breakthrough user experience. The visual sophistication of Windows Vista helps streamline your computing experience by refining common window elements so you can better focus on the content on the screen rather than on how to access it. The desktop experience is more informative, intuitive, and helpful. And new tools bring better clarity to the information on your computer, so you can see what your files contain without opening them, find applications and files instantly, navigate efficiently among open windows, and use wizards and dialog boxes more confidently.

Work From Home
Windows Vista Ultimate includes all of the features that make it easy to remotely connect to business networks. This means that when you're working from home, you'll have advanced networking capabilities, such as the ability to join a domain, support for Group Policy, and access to features such as Remote Desktop. Windows Vista Ultimate also includes Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption that provides improved levels of protection against theft for your important business data whether you are at home, on the road, or in the office.

More Entertainment Options
Windows Vista Ultimate delivers all of the entertainment features available in Windows Vista Home Premium, and includes everything you need to enjoy the latest in digital photography, music, movies, analog TV, or even HDTV. Ultimate also has helpful tools such as Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker to ensure that you have everything you need to collect, manage, and edit your digital content. It also includes Windows Media Center for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center.

Versatile Operation
Windows Vista Ultimate truly lives up to its name by delivering all of the features both business and home users want and need. It is the ideal solution for both a small-business owner who wants a single PC that he or she can use at the office, on the road, and at home, and for someone who wants a home PC that will be used primarily for entertainment purposes but that can also be used for business purposes such as connecting to a corporate network.

From the Manufacturer
Get EVERYTHING that Windows has to offer. Windows Vista Ultimate is the most complete version of Windows Vista. It includes all the features available in Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Enterprise. In this version, you get the best of advanced innovation for business usage scenarios, advanced productivity for mobility-focused usage, as well as the top of the line digital entertainment features that you can enjoy at home. You will love how Windows Vista Ultimate transforms your PC to be simply amazing for your home, on the go, or at the office.

Keep Your PC and Your Family Safer Online
Help keep the entire family safe online with Parental controls. Windows Vista also helps you protect your PC from the impact of viruses and spyware by alerting you when potentially dangerous software is trying to run on your computer. Windows Vista Ultimate uses Windows Defender to help protect your PC by regularly scanning your computer and offering to remove any spyware or other unwanted software that it finds.

All the Right Tools You Need to Work More Effectively
Now, Windows Vista Ultimate makes working from home or remotely more efficient because it includes all the advanced networking, security, and productivity features included in Windows Vista Business. It keeps your data more secure even on shared computers by encrypting the files of each user, provides flexible, integrated faxing and scanning capabilities that make it easier to send and receive faxes, scan documents and images, and share those resources with other people. Windows Vista Ultimate also helps boost your PC performance and makes it more responsive by caching key system information on a USB flash drive or other flash memory form factor. (This speeds performance because the flash memory can often be accessed more quickly than the hard disk). It also helps improve PC responsiveness and helps make system performance more consistent by tracking which applications are used most often and preloading them into memory for quick access.

Everything You Need to Be Fun and Creative at Home (or Even on the Go).
Sit back and enjoy your favorite television shows on your own time with Windows Media Center. Watch, pause and record your favorite TV or premium high-definition (HD) cable television content, find the program you want using the built-in television guide, listen to your favorite music and share your photos with family and friends in a slideshow set to the soundtrack of your choice--all on your PC or a TV screen. With Extender devices like the Xbox 360 connected to your home network, you can even enjoy all the digital media you have on your PC virtually anywhere in your home. With Windows Vista Ultimate, retain high-definition (HD) quality as you capture, edit, and publish movies from your HD camcorder and create professional-looking DVDs complete with transitions and chapters that you can enjoy in your home DVD player.

Features in Windows Vista Ultimate

The greatest Windows Vista experience available.

• Windows Aero--features stunning visual effects, including helpful animations, transparent glass menu bars, and live thumbnail previews of open programs.
• Windows Flip 3D--enables you to dynamically flip through your open programs in a three-dimensional, stacked view.
• Instant Search--Find anything on your PC and on the internet with search technologies integrated throughout Windows Vista.
• Windows Ultimate Extras--get new and exclusive software and services available only for Vista Ultimate customers.
• Use your PC in multiple languages--can run in a different language for each user.

• Windows Defender--helps safeguard your PC against spyware and security threats.
• Dynamic security protection--helps you browse the web more securely.
• Windows Backup and Restore Center--helps schedule automated backups of your important files and settings.
• Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption--helps to better protect your data against loss or theft if your mobile PC is ever lost or stolen.
• Anti-phishing technology--helps protect you from fraudulent websites that attempt to steal your personal information.
• Internet Explorer protected mode--helps prevent unwanted malicious software downloads.
• Parental Controls--manage the rules for your children's computer use including web access and games.

• Windows Media Center--Watch, pause and rewind live TV or enjoy your entire digital entertainment library on your PC or television.
• Windows DVD Maker--burn your photo slide shows and home movies to DVD.
• Extend Windows Media Center--enjoy your digital entertainment on TVs throughout your home with an Xbox 360 or other media extender.
• Games for Windows--are available on your PC or online for every age and ability
• DirectX 10 --enables Windows Vista to run the latest, most graphically advanced PC games in the market.
• Windows Games Explorer--helps you install, manage, and enjoy all of your games in one easy-to-access location.
• Three new premium games--includes Mahjong Titans, Chess Titans, and InkBall,
• Windows Movie Maker--helps you capture, edit, and publish your digital home movies in standard or high-definition format.
• Windows Media Player 11--new features are designed to help you manage your library of digital music, photos, and video and synch with a variety of portable players.

• Fast Sleep and Resume--Pause and resume your computer session in just seconds while conserving your battery life in sleep mode.
• Network and Sharing Center--helps you more easily and securely connect to wireless networks.
• Windows Mobility Center--saves time by giving you quick access to key mobile system settings.
• Remote Desktop--connect more easily with remote PCs.
• Windows Fax and Scan--helps you send, organize and share faxes and scans.
• Domain Join--it's easier than ever to confidently connect with company or school networks.
• Windows Meeting Space--helps you wirelessly connect your mobile PC to a friend's PC for sharing files--even when you're not connected to the Internet.
• Sync Center--helps keep your portable devices synchronized with your PC.
• The best version of Windows for notebook PCs with enhanced Tablet Technology.

Customer Reviews

Second verse, same as the first but twice as loud and a whole lot worse.
Meh.

Vista reminds me of Windows XP except:
1) It's prettier. Hey, translucent window frames! Neato.

2) It's far more annoying. Have you seen that "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercial where the secret service guy is standing behind the PC asking him to approve or disapprove everything? Vista is totally like that. It's extremely annoying. Simply trying to run a built-in program from Windows' own control panel will pop up a box asking me if I want to run it. What's up with that? I just clicked it, so yes, I want to run it. You'll run into a lot of these and they don't really improve security because after the first 100 times, you're not even going to read the box anymore. One day it will say, "A hideous virus wants to delete your hard drive and send nastygrams to the President. Approve?" and I'm going to say yes simply out of habit.

I also say this feature fails the "dad" test. Is my dad going to know when to approve or disapprove things? I can picture him puzzling over the dialogue, wondering why it's asking him that.

3) There's a problem with Vista wireless networking. You can find people talking about it through Google but there's nothing on the Microsoft site about it. Every 60 seconds, Vista polls for new wireless networks whether it needs to or not, which will give you a ping spike. If you're surfing or downloading you won't notice, but if you're gaming, it's extremely aggravating. If you switch to a wire, the problem will go away. If you switch to XP, the problem will go away. It's purely a problem with Vista wireless.

4) What I really care about are my other programs, not my operating system. We are getting an ever more aggressive, annoying and resource hogging operating system when all we really want it to do is shut up, sit down and enable me to run my other programs without too much interference. Microsoft seems to think that most people log on purely to enjoy the operating system. No, we log on to enjoy our OTHER programs so this big bloated operating system is just getting in the way and hogging the resources that our other programs wish they had.

I would love to see a "Windows Skeleton" operating system that simply stripped out all the annoying, resource hogging junk I didn't want and let me run my applications in peace.


Edit:
I've been using Vista for a while now and I just want to say I still stand behind my initial 2-star rating. My final analysis:

Stick with Windows XP for as long as possible.

I think the bottom line is that Microsoft's efforts to improve security and kowtow to concepts like DRM have created a problem worse than the initial threat. I've gone for years with nary a hit on the various anti-virus programs I've used, and yet here I sit with a crippled operating system which seeks to save me from a problem that I never really had to begin with.

And it's true what they say about gaming: some of my games are experiencing problems which only occur in Vista. I don't know the technical source of those problems, but only Vista users are getting them.

The semi-mandatory "driver signing" is annoying too, and will only get worse with Windows Server 2008. I download brand-name drivers from companies like Nvidia and I have to follow their directions that basically say, "ignore all the Vista warning messages you're going to get".

Vista is just downright unfriendly to the consumer AND to the developer.

I second the motion that you should at least wait until Service Pack 1 is out, but truthfully, I'd suggest just running Windows XP until you're absolutely forced to upgrade for some reason.

Edit 2 (December 07):
The way Vista separates Administrators from Peasants on your home system really doesn't help anything. A lot of the programs out there have an auto-update section which doesn't work unless you run the program as an Administrator, which means quite a lot of stuff has to be run as an administrator, which means the whole act of separating it out is nothing but another poorly thought out "security" measure that adds way more in annoyance than it adds in actual security.

Also, I was going to access Microsoft Support to notify them of a bug I'd found, which is highly annoying and easily reproducible. On their support web site I find this gem:
"90-day no-charge support begins on the following dates:

* From the date you place your first support request.
* For Windows Vista, from the date you activate the product.

Cost:$59.00 US per support request after all no-charge support is used."

So wait...

It's going to cost me $60 to report this bug in your software?

And if I'd bought XP, I could report it for free since it would be my first support call, but since I bought Vista and activated it more than 90 days ago, it's going to cost me?

Chalk that up as yet another reason to not buy Vista. Stick with Windows XP.

Neither the consumer nor Vista are ready. Wait a year. Buy a good computer
I tried Vista. I sell and repair computers. If you want to work with Vista without a glitch follow this tips:
1) Wait until the first Service Pack it's out.
2) Buy a State of the Art computer with components and programs manufactured after the first half of 2007.
3) Get the OS preinstalled, not retail.
4) Forget about all your old software.

Terrible product - here's why
I was really looking forward to Vista. I ran out and got my copy as soon as it hit shelves. Two weeks later, I uninstalled it. I don't know when, or even if, I will reinstall it. Here's why:

1) Game support - BEFORE you buy Vista, make sure your favorite game has a Vista patch, because it most likely won't work otherwise. Check online to ensure that they are compatible, because many just aren't.
2) Immature drivers - in point 3 below, you'll see that Vista flat out does not support many hardware devices. Even for those that it does, the drivers are so new, that the device (like my GeForce 7900GT) actually run SLOWER in Vista than XP.
3) Hardware support - most vendors are NOT releasing Vista drivers, to force people to buy new hardware. For instance, my scanner (Epson) has no vista compatible driver (I tried the XP driver), and neither does my camera. BEFORE you buy Vista, check to see that your hardware is supported!
4) Copy protection. Like to copy a DVD so you can watch it whenever you want? Forget it! It WILL NOT happen in Vista, M$ made sure of that. Same thing with programs like TuneBite that let you convert WMA songs into MP3s.
5) Antivirus. Vista's security it, well, more secure than XP. But the antivirus applications compatible with it are VERY lacking at this point. And there are already viruses (virii?) out for Vista, so you DO need it.
6) Firefox - many sites do not work under Firefox with Vista. And some extensions do not work. I can't help but think this might be intentional.