Part Two: The business versions

Microsoft has two versions of Windows aimed at business; Windows Business ($300 new/$200 upgrade) and Windows Enterprise (pricing not available).  Windows Business will be offered as a retail SKU whereas the only way to get Windows Enterprise is to have a volume licensing agreement in place.

The business versions take an entirely different tack from the consumer ones.  The tools included in the business versions are targeted toward business users and lack many of the consumer oriented tools.  One important technical difference between the consumer and business versions is that only the business versions will recognize dual processors.  All Windows versions can take advantage of a single dual-core processor, but the if you have two physical processors, you will need one of the business versions (or Windows Ultimate) to take advantage of them.  Both business version have the following features:

•  All of the backup options listed in Home Premium plus the ability to do full disk image based backups
• Shadow copy functionality to permit the restoration of earlier versions of documents
• The regular Windows Movie Maker (not the HD ones)
• Tablet PC Support
• Encrypting File System Support
• Desktop Deployment Tools
• Quality of Service
• Rights Management Client
• Control over installation of device drivers
• Remote Desktop Support

The Enterprise version adds the following features:

• Bitlocker Drive Encryption
• Support for multiple languages
• Subsystem for UNIX based applications

The business versions specifically do not include the following:

• DVD authoring
• Native  DVD encoder
• Windows Movie Maker HD
• Windows Media Center
• Parental Controls

Of course you can always get Vista Ultimate and get access to everything from both product families

As you can  see, Microsoft has made an effort to separate the feature sets.  Most users will probably neatly fall into one of the two categories; home or business.  The problem will be users who need features from more than one category.  For example, the media center functionality is something I would like to have on my downstairs computer that is hooked to my tv, but periodically, I like to access it from upstairs using remote console.  With Vista, I will have to either purchase the Ultimate edition or else use a third party tool like VNC for remote access.

I hope that this has helped clear up some of the confusion on Vista’s versions.  Tomorrow I will briefly discuss the licensing rules – specifically the changes for business users who access the Volume License keys and MSDN users.

-Jim