If you’re a Windows user, you know that Vista Home Premium is a great operating system for free. But if you’re looking to get the most out of Vista, there are a few things you can do to make it your ultimate OS. Here are three tips:

  1. Use the Windows Update service to keep your computer up-to-date with the latest security patches and features.
  2. Use the Windows Task Manager to manage your computer’s resources and performance.
  3. Use the Windows Registry Editor to customize Vista’s behavior and settings.

Before we begin, lets take a look at what Vista Ultimate offers that Home Premium does not. Here is a chart of features included in Ultimate that Home Premium lacks out of the box. Keep in mind that this refers to Pre-SP1. Throughout this series I will include additional SP1 information.

The list above is what Microsoft published as a guide to help the consumer choose the version of Vista that is right for them. Now, there are even more astonishing differences between Vista Home Basic vs Home Premium vs Business etc. I mean, why on earth would an OS not include everything on one edition? These features (or lack thereof) between each version are simply not worth the hundreds of dollars in price difference. To give you an idea of what topics will be covered in this series, check out this list of what we can add to make Home Premium as good if not BETTER than Vista Ultimate. This is ONLY a partial list.

Also, I am working on developing a stable work around for Vista Home Premium’s lack of ability to join a domain. Most home users probably wouldn’t utilize anything like this … but I love a challenge. So stick with me! Over the next days and weeks I will be covering some very cool information!

Disk Imaging:

Using DriveImage XML