@LifesSweetDrug: LOL I was thinking the same thing.

MrGutts

Or you could just buy/download Vista Ultimate.

LifesSweetDrug

@LifesSweetDrug: How un-cool is that? Buying Ultimate is written up on Lifehacker.

Make my baby

so the difference between Home Premium and Ultimate is "Shadow Copy"??

there's got to be more than that. i think the article should have read "How to get the GUI part for system restore" because all Vista editions that have system restore enabled have this shadow copy behaviour.

JadeEmperor

after running dreamscene for 15min u'll decide u have better things to do with ur cpu power and disable it.

MttFrog13

They claim that the DreamScene mod works for Vista Business, but I never had any luck getting it to work on my Vista Business w/ SP1 laptop, personally.

JRock

Hooray for p2p!

daybringer

Bi-directional RDP support? That's the big one for me.

superunlikely

Home Premium does come with media center. The issue I have with home premium is joining a domain. I am trying to decide if I want to upgrade to be able to join a domain or not.

tohanry

@JadeEmperor: Vista Home Premium DOES have shadow copies.. I wish people would realize this. Just download a program called ShadowExplorer and you can browse through the shadow copies.

acatzr800

does premium come with media center - the reason you have vista ultimate?
i didn't think it it but having said that i have always used ultimate so i don't know

hal9000

if i had a lapptop i would erase vista and put wundows xp ue on it. its the best. google it.

fredygamer

@LifesSweetDrug: Why would you want to do that, when there's good free alternatives to all Ultimate's added features?

HeartBurnKid

@tohanry: I completely agree with you - and this is why the Vista versioning system annoys the heck out of me. All I really want to be able to log on to my company's Windows Server Domain. Does anyone have a hack for that?

Sbudda

I was expecting at some point someone would figure this out. But I just have to ask -- is it worth doing "upgrading" from Home Premium to Ultimate? I didn't really end up liking Vista very much, and it was Vista that made me decide to repartition the laptop and install Linux. The more pessimistic side of me is thinking that an upgrade to Ultimate could be more of a downgrade.

@LifesSweetDrug: New desktops and laptops are being sold nowadays with Vista so doing this would be the better economical solution without pirating.

chareverie

@fredygamer: windows sorry

fredygamer

@superunlikely: Big one for me too. And no, VNC won't cut it. RDC has much better performance than VNC, plus it leaves the physical machine locked.

johnsmith1234

windows(sorry lol)

fredygamer

@hal9000: I believe that Home Premium does come with Media Center. If you're one of the folks with Home Basic or Business, though, there's always GB-PVR and MediaPortal.

HeartBurnKid

I think everyone is missing the point of this post. It is just free software that behaves like some features of Windows Ultimate.

lexbaby

@wykell: The installation disc contains all of the versions, but it doesn't actually install the extra features.

The How-To Geek

Worth pointing out that FileHamster also works on XP. (As does DriveImage XML.)

olliebean

I just use Mac OS X to get the Vista-like experience on my home laptop. Also, let us not forget, every single version of Windows Vista that ships actually IS Vista Ultimate - it just depends on what license key you enter as to the features that are unlocked (or is that not true of the OEM versions?)

wykell

@hal9000: Home Premium does have Media Center per MS.

Here's the link: [www.microsoft.com]

jakeu1701

p2p OS. Software, fine, OS? I like my system working.

Nyx

Oh and I do work from my computer as my stable job and I don't just mean that software I don't need, I mean stuff that increases my productivity and general quality of work. Vista Ultimate (or XP Professional even better) would be great. I've come across way to much software (esp. Microsoft)that only works on ultimate or professional.

Nyx

A lot of people CANNOT AFFORD vista ultimate. I am a computer geek, student, and love to experiment with these things, but im still paying back the loan on my computer. So will people please stop telling me to just buy software instead of using free stuff! Sorry for the rant but it is annoying. There is a lot of paid software I would love to play with but oh well, lifehacker ROCKS!

Nyx

@lexbaby:

You are completely correct! The point of my series is to incorporate 3rd party utilities so you can get the same benefits from Home Premium as are included in Ultimate.

Since the majority of new PC's will come with Home Premium or Basic, I thought these would be cool tutorials to get as many of the features of Ultimate into "lesser" versions. I think Microsoft is being completely unreasonable to expect users to pay $100+ more for features we can incorporate into Home Premium, Basic ... and in most cases XP for free.

mysticgeek.htg

Once again a great tip. No one said you have to use it, and no one recommends downloading P2P. Not saying that I have never done that. Just saying no one likes to talk about it. Plus of course then you get into the legal waters and I would prefer if Lifehacker, just keeps doing what it does, giving great info on how to do cool things, without breaking any of the laws. :)

Budo7

I think its great that people are trying to figure out how to make Home Premium more like Ultimate. When I bought my laptop I was on a pretty tight budget and it was either have a RAM upgrade or get Ultimate. I decided to get the RAM upgrade but I was pretty disappointment that I wouldn't get to play around with Ultimate's features (especially DreamScene). With these simple programs, I basically have Ultimate but didn't have to shred out the extra cash for it!

nogills

Home Premium is so nerfed versus Ultimate, it isn't even funny. It's the little things that are not mentioned in MS's comparisons either...like lusrmgr or gpedit is woefully disabled.

kftgr

@wykell:
What are OEM versions? I was thinking of upgrading from XP Pro to Vista and am intrigued by possibly being able to get Ultimate features from a Home Premium without freeware. Do you know any places where you could get Ultimate keys?

XenonVector927

These upgrades won't make it "exactly" like Ultimate, but they'll give you something close. If you want Ultimate, you're gonna have to buy it (or participate in a Windows survey).

evangelistc01

i couldn't get any of the programs to work on mine, the upgrades only $150. wheres my master card...

0zSpitt

It's a darn shame that Microsoft makes you jump through all those hoops (or fork the cash) for something that should have come installed by default... Eyecandy is not a feature (just ask around for the Leopard or Ubuntu Ultimate versions... Yes, there's only one version that comes with it all).

whiskey