Windows 7 Professional Edition
Windows 7 Professional is the main flavour targeted at home business and small business consumers. A large number of medium and large businesses will end up using this too.
Windows 7 Professional will have some features in addition to the ones found on Home Premium (which has Multi Touch, Aero Glass, etc.) like –
- Domain Join – the ability to join a managed network at work.
- Advanced Network Backup.
The Professional SKU does not support the Bit Locker encryption feature which is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate Editions. It also misses a couple other features that are available in the Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs.
Quite frankly, features like Bit Locker are valuable ones for any business and really ought to be part of the Professional Edition.
Windows 7 Professional is one of Microsoft’s Focus Areas
Bill Veghte, Senior VP at Microsoft Windows Team, indicated to Mary Jo Foley –
Microsoft is putting the bulk of its marketing dollars and muscle behind just two of the Windows 7 SKUs: Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. “We think over 80 percent of customers will be on those two SKUs,”
This clearly indicates that Microsoft has learnt from the Vista ‘more editions than fingers’ fiasco.
Comparison with Enterprise Edition + Ultimate Edition
The Enterprise Edition of Windows 7 is only available for businesses that buy volume licensing. The Ultimate Edition is for home consumers that want to get all the high end features of the Enterprise edition. The four features these systems have that are missing in Windows 7 Professional are –
Bit Locker – data protection on internal and external drives,
Direct Access – seamless connectivity to corporate networks based on Windows Server 2008 R2
Branch Cache – support when on networks based on Windows Server 2008 R2.
App Locker – lock unauthorized software from running with App Locker.
Windows 7 Professional System Requirements
The minimum and recommended system requirements for Windows 7 Professional SKU are not yet out. I’ll update this page when they’re released.
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Filed under: Windows 7 Downloads