After a long five year wait and being plagued by a series of development delay, Microsoft globally launched Windows Vista in which it is being made only available to businesses and volume license customers.

Windows Vista Business Edition, includes all of the the features that Windows Vista Home Premium has with the exception of Windows Media Center and its related technologies, parental controls, Windows DVD and Movie Maker HD. The product also includes the following:

IIS web server and fax support.
Rights Management Services (RMS) client.
File system encryption.
Support for dual processors (two sockets).
System images backup and recovery.
Offline file support.
The full version of Remote Desktop.
Ad-hoc P2P collaboration capabilities.
Windows ShadowCopy.

For the full version of Windows Vista Business Edition, you will have to pay at least $299. If you want to upgrade from Windows XP Professional or Windows 2000, you will have to pay $199.95. However, you can't do a in-place upgrade, but you'll to perform a full install instead.


Windows Vista Enterprise is targeted at the enterprise segment of the market and the top end product for the latest operating system. Here are the some additional features in the operating system that are not featured in Vista Business Edition:

Multilingual user interface support.
BitLocker Drive Encryption.
UNIX application support.

The 64-bit Vista Enterprise will not be available through retail or OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) channels, but it will be a part of the Microsoft Software Assurance enterprise licensing.

Both the 64-bit Vista Business Edtion and Vista Enterprise will support up to 128 GB of memory and the software will be support until 10 January 2017 at the earliest.

Along with the release of Microsoft Windows Vista Business Edition and Vista Enterprise, the company also released Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. Read these Wikipedia articles for further reading and information on Microsoft Office 2007 and Micorosoft Exchange Server.


Windows XP Home Edition users will have to miss out on the holidays when it comes to upgrading when they'll have to wait until Windows Vista gets released for worldwide retail availability on 30 January 2007. Windows Vista was released on 8 November 2006 to RTMs (release to manufacturing). Released to beta testers on 15 November 2006 and NSDN subscribers on 17 November 2006.

Older versions of Windows (95/98/98SE/ME and NT) do not qualify for upgrade pricing, so you'll have to pay for the full price version of Windows Vista and a in-place upgrade is also not supported as well.

Mainstream support for Windows XP Professional Edition will continue through at least 13 January 2009 and it will transition to extended support phase in which it will last through at least 14 January 2014.

_{If you have any concerns or questions about Windows Vista Business Edition or Vista Enterprise, you are welcomed to post your thoughts.}

Microsoft Windows Vista Website