You will be able to pre-order Windows 7 between 15th of July & the 9th of August from the M$ site.

Windows: Windows 7 Pre-Order Offer

These will be a full install - not an upgrade.

The version available to the EU is the -E package - which does not have Internet explorer bundled with it.

Not sure which retailers at the mo.

 

You can still upgrade your current OS if you buy a full licence of Windows 7.

Just like if you have Vista and buy an upgrade to Windows 7 you can still format and install a clean copy.

 

Just read the FAQs and the offer is only to purchase a Home Premium upgrade or Professional upgrade - no use to me as I'll want to upgrade Ultimate to Ultimate.

 

The upgrades only apply to the US edition.

You need to change the country to see what's in the UK. . .

The UK (EU) editions are a stand alone (with the "-E" at the end) - and not an upgrade.

Does Windows 7 "Ultimate" installer exist?

I thought it was just a paid for option to add onto the Home premium?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=659

 

All editions are being sold in the EU but the consumer now has the option of purchasing a trimmed down copy (the -E version)

This was also the case with XP and Vista (the N version) and I think the take-up was 'slim to none'

 

After having installed Windows 7 Ultimate beta and RC about 50 times - yes.

 

How Much!

Does it warrant a £170 price hike?

Main differences (according to M$)

Run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode.
- install Virtual PC 2007 on Home premium free

Connect to company networks easily and more securely with Domain Join.
- A must if on a corp network - no real work around.

Recover your data easily with automatic backup to your home and business network.
- Backup yourself?

Help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker.
- Any other third party encryption software

Work in the language of your choice and switch between any of 35 languages.
- who needs this?

 

Delvelopers writing software which will be run on other languages than English. Can't see reason for a "home" user to need this.

 

Household with a mixture of backgrounds. English mate of mine has a japanese wife, probably suit them.

 

Possibly, although I suspect that's not very common.

 

Still available from the following

Staples.co.uk Your business partner for Office Supplies, furniture and technology.
Microsoft Windows 7 | Comet advice
Pre Order yours today and save up to £120 - Micro Anvika UK
http://www.pcworld.co.uk
Play.com (UK) - Free Delivery - Computing - Windows 7

Amazon keep going out of stock - then back in.

 

Is the OEM version going to be cheaper? I picked up Windows Ultimate for £80 when it was released.

Steve

 

I doubt it.

 

So...... I've just ordered the Professional even though I have 'Ultimate Vista' (Amazon, back in stock £89).

Is the only difference with Ultimate REALLY just Bitlocker and the Language packs?

Steve

 

Yes, MS say Ultimate is for the "enthusiast"

 

analyst predict 177million copies of Win 7 sold by end of 2010.

wonder how many copies of osx there are out there?

 

So can I use it to install on a os free hd WITHOUT a copy of vista etc already on it?

Or did you answer that already Dunk?

 

Pay for Windows???

 

Yes

 

As I get older the appeal of searching for cracks and having them thwarted every few months and having to reapply a patch gets less appealing: So, yes, paying for Windows!

 

Cracks? haha. All you need is someone who can get a corp license or has access to MSDN sources

 

For XP, yes. I may use a program that reads the key from the corporate version

But hardly anyone has Vista and it'll be the same for Windows 7 for quite a while.

Steve

 

I'd be interested to know how you quantify 'hardly anyone'

Last summer, MS announced 180 million vista licenses sold.

Compared to XP, this is a different story, "Estimates state that it took 51 months for Windows XP to reach 400 million users, but neither XP numbers nor Vista numbers take into consideration the millions of copies of Windows that are pirated."

and predicted sales for Win7 are 177 million by end of 2010.

 

From a corporate perspective (which is where most of the useful keys come from). I have yet to visit a company that uses Vista.

Steve

 

I'm running Vista on 3 machines in the office, however I think generally it hasn't been taken up by the masses

I did read however, that it has been taken up by more companies in the first year than XP did. Persuading corporates to move from NT4 was hard work (we still have some customers that run on NT3.51)...

 

Corp licence won't work for Windows Vista or 7.

A volume licence key in your organisation needs to authenticate with a Key Management Server, this is a server that you've installed and authenticated your Volume Licence Key with MS.

And if you thought fine I'll build the KMS at home, it doesn't activate until it's received 25 requests for Windows Vista and 5 (I think) for Server 2008 - and virtual machines do not count towards the total for either.

Easiest way is to look for the single registry key that needs modifying to trick the OS into thinking it's activated.

 

The promo I attended from Microsoft recently hinted that you could not just buy Ultimate (otherwise known as Enterprise) unless you had a Select or Enterprise licence plan?

I'm trying to weigh up the pros and cons of the Enterprise upgrade from XP.

Darren

 

Just ordered my copy £44.99 delivered from Currys