Questions re BitLocker Drive Encryption on Vista Ultimate??

I am confused as to which Windows Vista version I should buy. We are living in an era where people can steal my computer and then photoshop my wife’s photos and publish it as if she is a porno star. I am serious. I need to protect myself, thus I really liked the Bitlocker feature of Vista Ultimate. Though there are some points that I did not understand. My questions are:

1) Suppose that I log into Vista, then create word file, work on it, save it to desktop, then transfer my jpeg files from my camera to a different location, say to another drive (D drive for instance). Would all these be encrypted when I turn off the computer? Would the term “volume” include everything on my computer’s hard drive(s)? (I know that BIOS files et cetera will not be encrypted, so there is no need to dwell on that part) Will I be going to select which drives/folders/files to be encrypted or something?

2) Would each file is encrypted and decrypted each and every time the computer is turned off and on?

3) If your answer to question no. 2 is “yes”, then, in the case that my computer’s hard drive is almost full, what would be the effects of encryption and decryption on the i) general performance and ii) on the starting up time and turning off time of the OS when the computer is turned on and off. (Or, even if your answer to question no. 3 is “no”, then I ask the same question in the case that I transfer many files to my computer’s hard drive(s) to such that its hard drive(s) become almost full.

4) As you have noticed, I always used the terms “turn on” and “turn off”. What happens if I initiate hibernate, standby and log off instead of turning off or restarting the computer?

5) It appears that the laptop I am considering to buy does not have TPM. Aside from the hassles of enabling Bitlocker on a computer that is not equipped with TPM, I know that I will be deprived of the “Integrity checking the early boot components” feature.

My question is, what will be the cons of this missing feature for me? Would it be like this: If I have a computer with TDM, and I decide to replace my hard drive, the computer will not open the OS (start up screen). It will seek only but only that hard drive to be used within the computer. However, if my laptop does not have TDM, then I can replace my hard drive with another hard drive, and the system will open the OS.

If my examples are correct, then I was wondering whether it would be possible to insert the original hard drive to another computer which will decrypt the contents of the hard drive?

6) My last question is, do you think that even a non-tech-savvy person can establish this Bitlocker feature of Vista Ultimate on a computer not equipped with TDM?

Many thanks for your time and attention!

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