Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Home Premium allows you to go beyond e-mail and web surfing to improve personal productivity and enjoy digital entertainment. You can search for anything on your computer from virtually anywhere. You'll get improved performance and better protection for your PC, your personal information, and your family. You'll find more ways to have fun with your music, TV, games, and digital media. Windows Vista Home Premium will also help you connect to wireless networks and manage battery life.
Desktop
Get things done
The Windows Aero experience helps make it easier to focus on your content and to find and keep track of what you're doing.
Live taskbar thumbnails and Live Icons show you what's in your open windows. And when you have a lot of programs open, you can locate and select the one you want using Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D.
Windows Flip 3D.
Find what you need
Instant Search helps you find your files, programs and e-mails. To quickly find that Halloween photo of your youngest child, you just start typing in the Search box on the Start menu.
As soon as you start typing, Instant Search begins showing results.
Consistent, streamlined menus, toolbars, and preview panes in the Explorers in Windows Vista also help you find your files and photos. Explorers include Search boxes too, so you can search within a particular type of information, such as all your documents. You can organize your files any way that you want and immediately sort and filter information based on file type, saved date, or the name of the file creator. Watch this demo to see how Windows Vista helps you find and organize information.
Explorers include Search boxes so you can find what you need.
When you're surfing the web, you can see all your open windows on one page and use tabbed browsing to easily flip through them. Plus, web search from the toolbar in Windows Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 help you find what you're looking for.
Navigate sites with tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8.
Windows Sidebar and gadgets help you keep track of airfares, traffic maps, news updates, and other information you might want to have handy.
Windows Sidebar and gadgets put handy tools on your desktop.
Getting setup and hands-off maintenance
Windows Vista Home Premium helps you get up and running fast using Windows Easy Transfer to automatically copy your files, photos, music, e-mail, and settings from your old PC to your Windows Vista–based PC.
After your computer is set up, how Windows Vista works in the background to take care of itself and reduce the amount of technical maintenance you need to do. Performance technologies help improve the responsiveness of your most-used applications and decrease the time it takes you to download files.
Self-healing technology automatically identifies and fixes problems, and built-in diagnostics alert you to disk failure, defective memory, and other potential issues so they can be resolved before affecting your everyday tasks.
Safe
Security features
Windows Firewall helps provide protection as soon as you turn on your computer. And Windows Defender can help you reduce the number of pop-ups and lessen the security threats posed by spyware and other unwanted software.
Windows Defender helps you avoid unwanted software.
Surfing safely
You can help decrease these online security threats by using Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 and taking advantage of capabilities in it that provide:
Help protect your family and your PC
With User Account Control, you can set up a user account for each family member, so a child will be prompted for a password when attempting to change system settings, install any additional software, or to use certain websites or games. And each family member can have their own set of favorites and desktop layouts.
With Parental Controls, you can manage your children's computer use by setting time limits and rules for accessing the web and PC games. And you can tailor the controls to suit the age level and personal interests of each child.
Use Parental Controls to help oversee your children's computer use.
Lastly, you can set up a scheduled backup to ensure you can recover your files.
Entertaining
Enjoy home entertainment
Windows Vista Home Premium allows you to enjoy entertainment with Windows Media Center.
For instance, you only need a cable TV connection and a TV tuner card to record TV shows and watch them whenever you like with no monthly fee. You can play DVDs, download movies, and even try something different like viewing your photos in a cinematic slide show or browsing your music collection by cover art.
Enjoy your digital entertainment with Windows Media Center.
You can also stream your digital entertainment on TVs throughout your home with support for Xbox 360 and other consumer electronics connected to your home network.
Edit your digital images, and share them
There are many ways to get more enjoyment out of your photos with Windows Photo Gallery. First, you can organize them with tags, dates, and ratings so they are easier to find. You can crop them, correct red-eye effects, and adjust exposure and color with a range of tools. And you can have fun creating slide shows with themes, transitions, and video as well as still photos.
Download, find, and share photos easily with Windows Photo Gallery.
You can also easily make a slide show and burn it to professional-looking video DVDs with Windows DVD Maker.
Create professional-looking DVDs.
You can edit and publish a digital home movie in standard or high-definition format with the updated Windows Movie Maker.
Play your heart out
Windows Vista Home Premium comes stocked with a number of fun games.
With DirectX 10 graphics card and the technology built into the operating system, Windows Vista can run the graphically advanced, realistic PC games.
Eye-popping graphics in Microsoft Flight Simulator X.
You can conveniently access all of your games, and information about them, in a single location on your PC using the Games Explorer.
Gain easy access to games—and detailed game info—with the Games Explorer.
Look for Games for Windows branded titles—from the simple to the spectacular—for every age and ability. Plus, have more fun with old favorites on your PC such as Spider Solitaire and Minesweeper, as well as three premium games: Mahjong Titans, Chess Titans, and InkBall.
Stay connected
Stay productive and entertained with your mobile PC
Windows Vista Home Premium helps you get the most from your mobile PC while you're on the go.
With Sleep and Resume, you can go for weeks without fully shutting down your laptop. Simply press the power button to pause and then resume your computer session while conserving your battery life in sleep mode.
Putting your PC to sleep can save time and power and protect your documents.
Using the Network and Sharing Center can help you connect more securely to wireless networks when you're away from home and set up a more secure wireless network at home.
You can use Sync Center to keep your supported mobile devices up to date with your calendar. And you can access and set your key mobile preferences in the Windows Mobility Center.
Windows Mobility Center is where you can adjust your PC settings.
Windows Meeting Space allows you to collaborate with other Windows Vista users. You can share plans, schedules, and pictures of the project over a wired network, a wireless local area network, or an ad hoc wireless network.
You'll find the pen in your Tablet PC feelsnatural and helps you scroll down webpages. And you won't have to write out URLs and e-mail addresses you've used before because AutoComplete lists possible matches from previous letters or series of letters.
Take your entertainment on the go
Windows Media Player 11 helps you manage your impressive media collection. And it lets you connect to a variety of portable players so you can take your media with you.
System requirements
Recommended system requirements
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
DVD-ROM drive
Audio output
Internet access (fees may apply)
Additional requirements to use certain features
Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration.
Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor
can help you determine which features and edition of Windows Vista will run on your computer.
While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs, only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support dual processors.
Minimum supported requirements
Certain product features are not available with minimum supported requirements.
800 MHz processor and 512 MB of system memory
20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for Super VGA graphics
CD-ROM drive
Compare system requirements across the editions.