Windows 7 Pricing Announced

The release date for Windows 7 is fast approaching and Microsoft have announced the pricing. There will be 3 versions available in mainstream Europe excluding the Enterprise editions. These will include:

Windows 7 Home Premium ‘E’ – £79.99 before 31/12/09 – £149.99 after.

Windows 7 Professional ‘E’ – £189.99 before 31/12/2009 – £219.99 after.

Windows 7 Ultimate ‘E’ – £199.99 before 31/12/2009 – £229.99 after.

‘E’ is the European version and complies with the European Union antitrust investigations to remove Internet Explorer from the Installation of Windows 7. However, Internet Explorer can be downloaded via FTP or installed separately from the CD.

So after looking at the pricing I felt (as with Vista) they are somewhat high. There will also be no cheap upgrade option available in Europe. Personally I feel anyone running Vista will definitely want to upgrade as the performance of Windows 7 is far superior to Vista. Anyone running XP should definitely give Windows 7 a try too, as it brings in many more features and you should not lose performance, unlike Vista.

A user has managed to run Windows 7 on a Pentium 2 with less than 128mb of ram and a 4mb Video card. So anyone who has brought a computer in the last 5 years should have no problem at all.

Overall, I do feel paying up to £229.99 is rather expensive considering the lack of tools available straight out of the box. Compared with Apples “Snow Leopard” for the Mac, being just £19 (no I haven’t missed a digit),Microsoft again seem to be overcharging us for what should be, in my opinion, a free version of Windows to users who bought Vista at anytime. Nevertheless, if you want new features without sacrificing performance and compatibility, Windows 7 is worth trying out. Just get it before 31/12/2009 to take advantage of those discount prices!

I will hopefully get my version of Windows 7 free as I did with Vista but which version I’m unsure.

Edit: Thought I best add I will hopefully get Windows 7 Free from Uni MSDNAA, I didn’t want you thinking I would use a pirated OS.