Microsoft Offers Windows 7 Home Premium for $50 if You Pre-Order

For the next two weeks Microsoft will offer customers who pre-order the Home Premium edition of the latest version of the Windows operating system at a discounted price of $50.

On Friday, June 26th Microsoft kicked of a Windows 7 promotion that will end July 11th. In that time customers will be able to pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium Edition for $50 ($49.99). Stores participating in the promotion include Amazon.com, Best Buy, and you can order direct from Microsoft through their website. Also available at a temporary promotional price is the Professional version. That edition is available for pre-order at the discount price of $100 ($99.99).

Special pricing for Windows 7 applies only to the upgrade packages and not the full versions. The full versions of both Home Premium and Professional are available to pre-order, but must be purchased at full price.

Microsoft has also announced the full retail prices for Windows 7 when it becomes available in retail locations later this year. The Home Premium Edition will be $119.99 for the upgrade, with the full version costing $199.99. The Professional Edition upgrade will be sold full price for $199.99, with the full version running $299.99.

Microsoft's decision to offer Windows 7 at a significantly discounted price if you pre-order is proving to be hugely popular, if Amazon.com is any way to judge. Since the announcement the Home Premium Edition has jumped to the number 1 selling item out of all products available in Amazon's entire electronics catalog, not just software. The Professional edition also jumped substantially, landing in the number 2 spot among software products.

Here are some links to online retailers offering Windows 7 at the discounted prices for pre-order:

• Amazon.com
• BestBuy.com
• NewEgg.com
• The Microsoft Store

For further reading about Microsoft's offer and Windows 7 click one of the links below:

• Microsoft discounts Windows 7 article in Computer world
• Windows 7 pre-order a hit article on CNET News
  

Microsoft Announces Windows 7 to Come in Several Versions

Get your Windows 7 today! Now available in diet and extra-chunky flavors!

In a move that has the tech world scratching its head, announced last week that Windows 7 will be available in six, yes six , different releases. Windows 7 may very well be the most anticipated release of the venerable operating system yet, following the fiasco and terrible management of the release of Windows Vista. Among the major criticisms of Vista was the seemingly unnecessary and blatantly greed-motivated release of four different versions. Confusion on the part of the consumer was a major problem hampering the adoption of Windows Vista. Consumers simply didn't know which version of Vista was the best for them, much less which version their computer would support. Add to that the high cost of the software itself and Vista has fizzled, almost from day one.

Early reviews of Windows 7 were very promising, with journalists, pundits, and consumers alike applauding many of the updates. The new operating system looks to be:

• Lighter and less demanding of system resources.
• More compatible with peripherals.
• Easier to manage.
• Less intrusive with a refined user access control (uac) alert system.

It also seemed that Windows would only be releasing a single, comprehensive version of the new, improved Windows. Sadly, it appears that Windows has not learned from their mistakes. Windows 7 will instead be released in the following six versions:

• Starter
• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Professional
• Enterprise
• Ultimate

For a detailed description of these editions click here. You'll need to scroll a little bit to find the descriptions.

It remains to be seen what the prices are going to be, but this is a perplexing move on the part of Microsoft. If Microsoft stays consistent with their previous practices, it seems likely that the cost of these editions will be substantial. This would present the same a barrier to upgrading and adoption that Microsoft experienced with Vista. After the fiasco resulting from four versions of Vista, it is confusing how Microsoft can rationalize upping the number of available versions of their new OS to six. This is especially odd given the nature of competitive operating systems. Mac OS X and the most popular distributions of Linux (Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, etc.) do fine with just one version of their OS available at a time.

What does this mean to you? Windows 7 is a marked improvement over Vista, and it may ultimately be a worthy successor to Windows XP. This means that if you are like most business and personal users, and you are still clinging to XP as a stable operating system that does everything you need, you should be able to switch to Windows 7 comfortably. At least, that's the way everything looked yesterday. Now it would appear that Microsoft is once again angling for the contents of your wallet by dangling six different colored lures in front of your eyes. Windows 7 stands to be a great improvement over past versions of the OS, but only if the price is right. If the OS is released with Microsoft's usual bloated prices, it might just be time to consider switching to a freely available, stable, secure, and nice looking OS like Ubuntu, SUSE, or Fedora.

Microsoft May Offer Free Update to Windows 7 for Vista Users

Now may be the time to buy that new computer with a pre-loaded version of Microsoft's Windows Vista

TechARP and Softpedia posted articles yesterday about a potential Microsoft Windows 7 update program. This program would provide users who purchased computers running a version of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system with a comparable version of Windows 7. While Microsoft has not made an official statement about plans for an update program, making such a program available would be consistent with the company's Windows Vista launch strategy. When Windows Vista was released in January of 2007, Microsoft offered free updates to Vista for users who had purchased a computer running Windows XP within a specific window of time leading up to the launch. Microsoft's Windows 7 update plan would have similar restrictions. Specific limitations on the update program would include:

• This update is available only to personal users, not businesses.
• This update is available only to users who purchased a new computer with Windows Vista pre-loaded between certain months.
  

What does this mean to you? Given the abysmal launch of Windows Vista, you (like many others) may have been waiting to buy a new computer, with the thought that you can get everything done in Windows XP, and there's no compelling reason to switch. That may change with early reviews of the Windows 7 Beta release that indicate the new operating system is considerably better at handling real-world computing tasks than either Windows Vista or Windows XP.

While Windows 7 is still in beta it's generally accepted that software gets faster and more stable between the beta version and final release. This means that Windows 7 has the potential to be the most stable, best performing version of Microsoft's OS to date. If you've been waiting to upgrade your computer until Microsoft either "fixed" Windows Vista, or released a new version, now may be the time to purchase that Windows Vista computer so you can take advantage of the free update to Windows 7 when it is released.

For more information on the potential update program please see one of the links below:

• "The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program" on TechARP
• "Windows 7 Upgrade Program" on SoftPedia
• "Report: Microsoft Details Windows 7 Upgrade Program" on Technologizer