Well, that didn’t take long. Currently it’s being plastered all over the internet that the official Windows 7 launch date is October 22, 2009. For those of you that suck at math, that’s roughly four months from now.
Microsoft says yes (much to the gritting of teeth by many), there will be five editions. Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. Chances are likely most of you will go with Home Premium or Ultimate.
For those of you that would ask, "What’s the difference between editions?", fear not because someone was nice enough to put together a chart showing what’s different between each one.
I can say that other than the absent encrypted file system and XP mode in the Home Premium edition, there really aren’t any reasons to use Professional or Ultimate. You still get all the visual perks, simple HomeGroup option for home networks and so on. So if you were torn about which one would suit you best, use Home Premium. Basic just misses too many features.
Even though a launch date is set, no price has been announced yet. This annoys me because I really want to know how much of hole in the wallet this is going to burn.
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium retail version currently sells for around $225 at most retailers. Yes, you can get an OEM for $99, and hopefully this will be made available on wide release of Windows 7 because I absolutely zero interest in spending over $100 more just for a pretty box and manuals. All I want is the license; the rest I can figure out on my own, thank you very much.
Those of you out there using Windows 7 RC like I am may get that option. A notice should come thru Windows Update when the RC ends stating you must update to a licensed version. Hopefully the price won’t be too stiff.
As has been said many times by many bloggers, if Microsoft decides to make this OS more expensive than Vista currently is, that would be a bad, bad maneuver in the current economic climate.
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I’m more concerned about volume licensing than the actual cost of the OS. I have 3 (maybe 4) Win7 capable machines, but I’ll be darned if I cough up full retail for each one. I also am still mulling over the comment one of you guys made a while ago about the cheapest way to a new OS is buying a new machine….
Sage
Conversely to Sage’s comment I’ll not be too worried about volume licencing initially, as I’ll only be installing 7 64-bit RTM on my latest box which already runs 7 64-bit RC, when the RC’s time has run out. (Probably in February next year (2010) before the RC starts shutting down every 2 hours.) The other box can stay running 32-bit XP until 2014.
However, as with Rich, I’ll be looking at getting an OEM; as I really don’t fancy paying full retail for my copy.
I would just like to say that not all chips will be able to run XP Mode which something that really pisses me off and also the reason i’m going to stick with home premium. if you want to check which chips are supported and which are not there is a list here http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=946&page=2