Which Vista for laptop?

[Terry Passmore]

Hi,
I have an HP laptop with Win XP Media Centre and would like to upgrade (or
fresh install-does not matter) to Vista. The laptop is the HP Pavilion
dv5230us which has a T2300 1.67GHz with 1.49 GB of RAM. Which version would
be he best to install? I am leaning toward the business version because I
use it mostly for business at client sites etc, but I like the media part of
this laptop as well. (even though the sound sucks big time - which may be
the speakers fault!!) Any ideas?
Thanks
Terry

 

[Frankster]

I can't speak specifically for your laptop, and if it supports Vista,
but... the only versions of Vista that support Media Center are Vista Home
Premium (not everything XP Home currently supports though) and Vista
Ultimate (everything XP Home/Pro/MediaCenter, plus more).

-Frank

 

[Frankster]

Oh... forgot to provide comparison link

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/editions/default.mspx

-Frank

 

[Dale]

I suggest Ultimate. If you ever travel (and have room in your suitcase for
small speakers) the multimedia capabilities will be nice.

Also, Ultimate includes BitLocker. Laptops get stolen. With BitLocker, if
your laptop gets stolen, no one has your personal or business data and your
customers' business data. If you do use BitLocker, make sure you set up an
automatic backup to an external drive or to another PC when you're at home
or the office. It would suck to have a hardware failure and not be able to
use the BitLocker'd drive in another PC to recover the data.

Dale

 

[Troy McClure]

you CAN recover data. just make sure you backup the recovery password

 

[Dale]

Yes, I know that you can. In fact, you can print out the key and not be
stuck with magnetic media as I was when I lost a lot of data using EFS. I
used EFS, reloaded my Windows, and when I tried to read the key, the
diskette was bad. That experience is what made me bring up the backup. No
matter what, you should back up to unencrypted. Who knows what flaw or bug
or other issue may break your BitLocker and no other recovery tool will ever
recover it.

Dale