Enterprise versus Business

[Bettie Claxton]

I'm getting ready to build the CFO's desktop. It came with Vista Business.
Our Volume license is Vista Enterprise. I cannot find on the web site what
the difference is between the two editions. Are they the same except one is
retail and one is volume?

 

[Bettie Claxton]

Actually I want to change my question. I found an question from a
mocharaspberrygrande dated 7/27/06 that asked much the same question and
Richard Wu's response includes a table comparing all the versions. It left
me with two questions: Is the table still valid with the installation of SP1?
What is "Single Session Virtual PC"? Is it the ability that I use to be
logged on with mulitple IDs at the same time?

 

[Joe Morris]

I'm getting ready to build the CFO's desktop. It came with Vista Business.
Our Volume license is Vista Enterprise. I cannot find on the web site
what
the difference is between the two editions. Are they the same except one
is
retail and one is volume?

See the table at

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx

Enterprise (not listed in the above link) is essentially Ultimate minus
products that aren't generally appropriate for an enterprise environment:
movie maker, parential controls, etc. There are differences between Business
and Ultimate/Enterprise such as the absence of BitLocker in Business.
Business and higher versions can be joined to a domain.

If you're a volume customer you're probably licensed for Business, Ultimate,
and Enterprise, at no difference in cost. Business and Enterprise both can
be volume-activated (either by MAK or KMS), but Ultimate allows only the
retail one-install-per-key although you can get keys as needed from the VAR
through which you purchased your volume license.

Your volume license contains the conditions under which you can use the
Windows systems it authorizes. You need to contact whoever is your VL
administrator to get the gory details (ask for the PUR: the Product Use
Rights document), or contact your VAR if you can't figure out what the
details mean. (I've been in that last boat, having a question that stumped
the VAR and the Microsoft sales team assigned to my account - the request
for clarification went all the way to Microsoft's contract office.)

Joe Morris

 

[Bettie Claxton]

Thanks. That helps.
--
Bettie

See the table at

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx

Enterprise (not listed in the above link) is essentially Ultimate minus
products that aren't generally appropriate for an enterprise environment:
movie maker, parential controls, etc. There are differences between Business
and Ultimate/Enterprise such as the absence of BitLocker in Business.
Business and higher versions can be joined to a domain.

If you're a volume customer you're probably licensed for Business, Ultimate,
and Enterprise, at no difference in cost. Business and Enterprise both can
be volume-activated (either by MAK or KMS), but Ultimate allows only the
retail one-install-per-key although you can get keys as needed from the VAR
through which you purchased your volume license.

Your volume license contains the conditions under which you can use the
Windows systems it authorizes. You need to contact whoever is your VL
administrator to get the gory details (ask for the PUR: the Product Use
Rights document), or contact your VAR if you can't figure out what the
details mean. (I've been in that last boat, having a question that stumped
the VAR and the Microsoft sales team assigned to my account - the request
for clarification went all the way to Microsoft's contract office.)

Joe Morris

 

[Lang]

I'm getting ready to build the CFO's desktop. It came with Vista Business.
Our Volume license is Vista Enterprise. I cannot find on the web site what
the difference is between the two editions. Are they the same except one is
retail and one is volume?

Volume licenses for Enterprise allow one copy of Ultimate for every 100
copies of Enterprise licensed. 599 copies of Enterprise or less get 5
Ultimate licenses.

Your CFO may not give a hoot or holler whether he has multimedia
functionality on his box. If he does want MM functionality, one would
think, as CFO, he could get one of the Ultimate licenses. (Unless some
geek in engineering has already beaten you to the punch...)

Lang