Difference Between Windows 7 Professional and Home Premium

Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: which to pick? You can make a decision after learning the difference between Windows 7 Professional and Home Premium. In this post, Partition Magic makes a comparison of the two editions.

Windows 7 comes with 6 editions, including Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, as well as Enterprise and Ultimate. Starter and Home Basic editions aren’t available in retail stores and they ship with PCs in select regions only. The Enterprise edition is only available for Enterprises.

In this post, we mainly talk about Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium. Before learning the difference between the two editions, you should have an overall understanding of the two editions first.

Tips:

You should know that the mainstream support for Windows 7 ended on January 13, 2015, and the extended support ended on January 14, 2020. So, you’d better upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 or Windows 11. Before that, you are recommended to make a Windows backup with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

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Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional

Windows 7 Home Premium contains features like Windows Media Center, Windows Aero, and multi-touch support. It suits home entertainment with a beautiful Aero theme and clear glassy look support. It was available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Windows 7 Professional is designed for professionals and small businesses. Most features of this edition can meet small business requirements. It has all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium and adds the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain.

Additional features include support for up to 192GB of RAM, operating as a Remote Desktop server, location aware printing, backup to a network location, encrypting file system, Presentation Mode, Software Restriction Policies, and Windows XP Mode. It was available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

#1: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: XP Mode

Windows XP Mode enables you to run older Windows XP software on your Windows 7 PC. It is available as a separate, but it only works on Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. If you run the Windows Home Premium edition, you won’t see this mode.

#2: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: Price

The retail price for Windows 7 Home Premium is $119.99 for an upgrade license and $199.99 for a new license. As for Windows 7 Professional, you need to pay $199.99 for an upgrade and $299.99 for a new installation. The software can be bought at a discounted price from retailers.

Also read: Windows 10 Pro vs IoT: What’s the Difference Between Them

#3: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: Backup and Restore

Both Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional feature automatic backups. Besides, they offer options to configure which files and folders get backed up and when the backups are scheduled. Differently, you can only back up to another drive or a DVD on Windows 7 Home Premium, while Windows 7 Professional allows you to back up over a network.

#4: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: Location-aware Printing

When you work in different locations that have different wireless networks and printers, make use of the location-aware printing feature that is available in Windows 7 Professional but not in Home Premium. This feature allows you to create preferred printer-network pairs so that Windows automatically chooses the right default printer for you based on your network.

#5: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: Remote Desktop Connection

The Remote Desktop Connection feature is available in all editions of Windows 7, but you can only connect to computers running the Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise editions. It means that you can use a computer running Windows 7 Home Premium to connect remotely to a computer running Windows 7 Professional but not vice versa.

Tips:

Remote Desktop connects two PCs over a network or the Internet. Once the two computers are connected, you can view the remote PC’s desktop as if you were sitting right in front of it, and access all the programs and files of it.

#6: Windows 7 Professional vs. Home Premium: Networking and Domain Join

If you need to use your computer at the office or for telecommuting, you might need to connect to a domain. Then Windows 7 Professional is a nice choice because it is designed to join a domain quickly and more safely. The Home Premium edition doesn’t boast this feature.

Tips:

Both Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional editions allow you to create and join homegroups to share files between Windows 7 computers on the same Wi-Fi network.

Windows 7 Home Premium vs Professional: which to pick? It depends on your condition. If necessary, you can upgrade Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional or downgrade Professional to Home Premium.

Bottom Line

Windows 7 Home Premium vs Windows 7 Professional: what is the difference? Well, the difference between Windows 7 Professional and Home Premium has been shown to you in this post. You can read it to explore the details.

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Having writing articles about computer tech for a long time, I am rather experienced especially on the aspect of computer optimization, PC enhancement, as well as tech terms explanation. The habit of looking through tech forums makes me a great computer issues collector. And then, many articles related to these issues are released, which benefit plenty of users. Professional, effective, and innovative are always the pursuit of an editing worker.