like the title says i'm thinking of downgrading from Ultimate and going to Home Premium. mainly because there are a ton of crap services in this version that i don't need and don't use. and mainly just for plain operating speed improvement. like i mentioned in another thread, all i really do is gaming, surfing, watching all types of media, burn dvds, listen to music, customizing, just simple stuff along those lines. i still have XP if i want to do programming and things of that nature. what i guess i'm asking is if there anyone using home premium that is unhappy with a part of it--like are you missing something you need that's not there? if so what is it? starter is just not an option @ all cause it sux that bad, no dvd support, 3 windows open max, etc. i'd never be able to get along with such limited specs. suggestions, comments? prob going to do this within the hour, so all information welcome...
read here : mydigitallife.net/hack-to-in-place-downgrade-from-windows-7-ultimate-or-professional-to-less-premium-editions
this seems obvious to me, sorry, didn't mean "downgrade" quite literally--it will be another clean install...
It doesn't take much to disable some features through the 'Programs and features', and to disable services you don't want. Keep in mind not to get too heavy handed doing that, and not to disable the windows search feature through the programs and features as this will remove the search area of the start menu and explorer. Instead, disable the windows search service, which leaves those search areas intact but disabled crappy indexing etc. This is just one consideration of several. Basically, there really isn't any advantage of what you suggested in real terms when you consider all of these options that are available.
I think this is kind of a case of "it's all in your head Mr. Tweedie" because you can tweak Ultimate any way you like. It would be better to just tweak some services than to have MS provide you with a certain services configuration. Plus, I don't really see what more would be running when you compare versions. It's all just a matter of options, after which you can pick and choose. When you downgrade your OS, all you get is less options. So I really don't see the need or logic behind such a move. If there is a service you don't want to run, then don't run it. I still wonder what you think is running on Ultimate that wouldn't be running on Home Premium exactly, but OK. I think I would probably run the OS through RT7Lite or something before downgrading (that's what I did). That way you can remove some things, set services exactly the way YOU like them, but still have all the options available to you. I also have it to where it applies a bunch of reg tweaks before first logon, so when I reinstall from a new build the OS is the way I want it to be. But if this is too hard for you to do, then just install Ultimate fresh, tweak it the way you like, and make a complete system backup you can restore from in the future (Use a good backup soft like Active@ Disk Image and its live boot disk or something). That way it's a matter of a couple of minutes and you'll have the OS the way you like it again (in case you need to restore).
well i've done it, and yes the load is much lighter on my pc. home premium runs faster than ultimate ever thought of running, @ least here. so not all in my head, so to speak. i had already disabled all the nonsense that i didn't use and modified all the startup processes, and all the services i could within Ultimate and it still ate up all my cpu and ram, period. it's bloated and my pc doesn't like gas lol. i'm more pleased using premium than ultimate mainly because ultimate seems like it's for those with @ least 4gb of ram and that do a lot of web hosting and peer to peer operations than just typical enthusiast use. i have nor do any of those things so it's useless to me. so far i've not encountered anything missing that i need. and trinket, thanks for your input, but i've been using a pc for ages now so i'm fully aware of the benefits of using backup software and such --i personally use Paragon Backup and Recovery 2011 for it's reliability, speed, and it's free. an image of a 24gb partition that my 7 is installed on is only 4.2gb, and an image of a 20gb partition that my XP is on is only 7gb (my current XP setup actually uses way more space than 7 strangley). anyway thanks for the input folks i just did it my way in the end and the outcome was just what i needed...
lol, wasn't sure if anyone would get the Chicken Run reference @stayboogy: Well I'm glad this is working better for you to go with Home Premium, to be honest I've never tried it on my own PC, and have always used ultimate (either 32-bit or 64-bit versions). Now you're getting me thinking... I think main reason the images are so small (relatively) is because of the paging file not getting included (naturally). But if yours is 4.2gb for 7 then this probably means you're using 32-bit Win7 (OK, just read your specs, so yes). But strange about the XP partition, normally XP is smaller to back up than 7, so it must be due to software/games you have installed on that partition? EDIT: still I don't think Home Premium could be faster, considering how Win7 is issued. It's the same OS entirely on all discs, it's just what is unlocked or not that determines what OS version you get. And the extra features that come with Ultimate to my knowledge don't actually load unless you use them (bitlocker, etc.), so it is much more a question of features than it is a question of speed. The kernel is exactly the same, you'll just have a more or less limited feature set depending on which 7 version you use, but it is not like the extra features all load into memory when booting up, so it should not impact performance to use Ultimate over Home Premium. But, a fresh install always feels snappy
there's not really much on my XP partition--it's just had all the updates and what not from the last several years, the OS and all programs is only 12.1gb of that 20gb, whereas my 7 is 11.2gb of 24gb--give 7 some time for more updates and it'll take up more space i'm sure. i understand what you mean about 7 and the versions only being different features but i assure you that i have disabled all the same services that i disabled on ultimate (even less since there were more present in ultimate) and have installed all the same programs on this version, and have everything tweaked just like i did and this is running faster and using less load on the cpu. not trying to argue at all, but i'm seeing the difference firsthand; if i really want to in the future i could just do "upgrade anytime" from my universal dvd if my understanding of how that works is correct, although it would take doing that twice to get to ultimate--from home premium to professional, then from professional to ultimate... i could be wrong though.
It'd be nice if so, and I did read some more about people's experiences with Ult vs HP, but can't seem to find any clear reasons/answers...