Over the next few months, millions of people all over the world will be upgrading their computers to Windows 7, or purchasing PCs which have the new operating system on board. I’ve been testing Windows 7 for a long time now, and have used it on production machines for a significant proportion of that time too, so I know it’s a great release that works well on machines from netbooks through to the most powerful desktops.
Microsoft will be offering a variety of editions to serve consumer and business customers, and understanding what features are available in which edition can be difficult. I’d recommend you checking out Paul Thurrott and Ed Bott for more details and commentary on this.
For most average consumers, Windows 7 Home Premium is probably the sweet spot in terms of cost:features ratio, but if you’re a Windows Home Server owner, my advice is to plump for Windows 7 Professional, for one big reason – Remote Desktop.
Those of you currently running Windows XP Home or Windows Vista Home Premium may have tried to access and control those computers remotely using your home server, and found that you can’t. That’s because so called “consumer” versions of Windows cannot act as a “remote desktop host”. Hosting remote desktop connections is considered a “business-level” feature, and is only available in XP Pro (and, as a quirk, XP Tablet and Media Center editions which were built on the XP Pro platform) and Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate.
With regard to Windows 7, you’ll see that editions up to and including Windows 7 Home Premium cannot be accessed using a remote desktop connection, whilst Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate do have this feature enabled.
So if you’re in store or online, and you’re trying to figure out whether you should go for Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional, if you want to access that computer remotely using Windows Home Server, Go Pro. Professional has everything that’s available in Home Premium (including Windows Media Center) so don’t think you’re buying a dusty, boring, “business” version of Windows.
Microsoft are offering huge 50% discounts off upgrade prices until early July. Amazon has the details:
($99)
($49)
28. June 2009 at 12:29 pm
Going ultimate it's only $20 more
29. June 2009 at 6:04 am
Where do you see Ultimate for only $20 more? Amazon shows th Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade as $220. That is on hundred and twenty dollars more.
29. June 2009 at 9:26 am
Not the upgrade, the full retail.
28. June 2009 at 12:57 pm
Why bother using Remote Desktop when vnc is so much better? You can stay logged into the same account with vnc.
28. June 2009 at 1:34 pm
Ultra VNC is free and just as good. No need to buy Pro. Microsoft needs to draw a better distinction between the different skus of 7.
28. June 2009 at 1:48 pm
As an alternative you can also use Live Mesh. I have been using that on my Vista Home Premium system and while it isn't as responsive as Remote Desktop, it does the trick.
28. June 2009 at 9:35 pm
I use Logmein free for remoting into my machines. No need to configure your firewall and it uses SSL encryption.
But all that doesn't matter as none of these are compatible with the remote desktop function of the WHS website. Maybe someone will come up with a way to hack it into Home Premium like they did with XP/Vista Home.
28. June 2009 at 10:30 pm
I agree with Bill, Live Mesh is the way to go for occassional remote access to your desktop.
19. December 2009 at 1:56 am
Live Mesh totally screwed my pc up…. never again!!
29. June 2009 at 11:39 am
I've been considering the difference between Pro and Premium in Windows 7, and remote desktop had been a consideration for me, as well. But I think I'm more easily swayed by the ability to run Virtual XP in Professional, compared to Premium.
I also use Logmein free for the occasional remote session, and it's worked very well. But, for at least one of my machines, the addition of Virtual XP and remote desktop makes the difference.
29. June 2009 at 11:43 am
I have been using the free version of LogMeIn and have been very happy. I don't know if this will be the case with W7, but currently to remote in to my Windows Vista Ultimate x64 PCs they must have a log in password. On my HTPCs I do not have a log in password so I cannot remote in. Logmein allows me to get around this and assign a password via Logmein.
29. June 2009 at 3:34 pm
Windows 7 Home Premium comes with the Remote Desktop Client. You can still connect to other machines that have the Remote Desktop Host.
So the only limitation will be that you can't remote desktop TO your machine that has Windows 7 Home Premium.
29. June 2009 at 4:33 pm
This is good news. If I understand this correctly; it will be possible to access WHS using Remote Desktop from a PC using Windows 7 Home Premium?
29. June 2009 at 8:48 pm
@Mitch – This has always been the case.
@MarTen – Correct. You can Remote Desktop into WHS from pretty much any Windows client. This post was about not having the ability to Remote Desktop into a client machine with W7 Home Premium due to it not having that feature.
30. June 2009 at 6:46 am
Mesh remote support …. suks: It too slow, It is not tied to WHS. Let's not forget about features that exist in Professiona, and are missing from the Home version like: XP mode or disk encryption. These two are worth extra $45 on the special upgrade promotion.
30. June 2009 at 10:57 am
@Boggy: When you refer to "disk encryption," are you talking about BitLocker? If so, I think that option is available only in Ultimate. See: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/produ...
30. June 2009 at 4:29 pm
Sorry Boggy — I stand corrected. I just read about EFS, as compared to BitLocker.
30. June 2009 at 8:52 pm
Is there a discounted upgrade option to go from Vista Ultimate to Win7 Ultimate?
2. July 2009 at 8:22 am
PaulG. Initially I also that that lack of BitLocker meant no HD disk encryption at all. I wish Microsoft would do a little bit better job on providing detailed information. I still not understand why would MS not include Remote Desktop access for Home Premium (HTPC need it for sure), or simple disk encryption (laptops, net-books are getting so popular, and one would think that EVERYBODY would need some kind of data protection). It almost seems like a negligence on MS part. So many SKU's simply is too confusing.
3. July 2009 at 9:21 am
The Microsoft comparision of Home Premium and Pro does not list this as a difference, thus Home Premium must be able to host remote desktop.
I found a few old postings claiming a difference (posted befroe MS published the final comparision)
Is there a MS source which states that home premium will not support it?
4. July 2009 at 7:31 pm
It can only be a matter of time before the clever people who came up with the termsrv.dll hack(s) for Windows Vista Home Premium do the same for Windows 7.
I am typing this on my main Vista Premium (64) desktop whilst remote desktop'd from my netbook downstairs
17. July 2009 at 4:18 am
all righty then…so i guess if i don't upgrade my tablet laptop running "Xp tablet pc edition 2005 ver.2002 sp3" i can remote my whs from it??
the truth is i am overwhelmed on all this windows 7 " ?" to use i have 5 computers here at home using 3 have two in storage thinking of a home server for file and print maybe a email server and the hp thing looks great for movie sharing around home and on the road but it seems like every things needs a upgrade to work ….
wtf shoould i do?'
thnks tucson sam here