Recently word leaked out that Microsoft’s new “Vista” operating system, due sometime this year, will ship in more than one variant. This is not unprecedented, as Windows XP comes in “Home”, “Media Center”, and “Professional” editions.

Vista, though, will apparently ship in eight fun-filled flavors. Here they are, with a quick description of each.

Windows Starter 2007. Doesn’t have Vista’s advanced “Aero” graphics, so it might even run on the new PC you just bought. Doesn’t even get the Vista name.

Windows Vista Home Basic. Targeted at single PC homes.

Windows Vista Home Basic N. Ships without Windows Media Player to keep the European Union’s antitrust police happy. You won’t need it unless you want to live like a European. Which, of course, you can, but you’ll have to pay five bucks for a gallon of gas, park on the sidewalks, and take fewer showers. But, I digress.

Windows Vista Home Premium. Includes Media Center capabilities.

Windows Vista Business. Equivalent to XP Pro today. Most likely includes VPN functions, remote management, collaboration and meeting software.

Windows Vista Business N. Vista Business without Windows Media Player (again, for the European Union).

Windows Vista Enterprise. Includes Virtual PC, secure startup, full volume encryption, and multi-language interface.

And, finally, Windows Vista Ultimate. Includes all features of both Vista Home Premium and Vista Business.

Speaking of “the old country”, this just in from “across the pond”. Seems a U.K. computer superstore, as many do, is offering computer classes as a value-added feature to increase sales in the highly competitive discount PC market. A recent discount PC purchaser attended one of these classes. He/she reported that the teacher, without student prompting, spent much of the class period explaining in detail how to use LimeWire (a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing application) to illegally download music from the Internet.

Besides the legal implications of online music piracy, it turns out that this computer superstore also sells music CDs. So, the teacher was, in a sense, teaching the students how to “virtually” get a music CD past the anti-theft portal at the front of his own store.

The good news is the student who reported the situation needn’t worry about music industry lawyers banging on his door any time soon. Turns out that so far in the class they’ve been unsuccessful in getting LimeWire to work on the new Windows PC.

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski