Windows 7 Pricing Details

June 25th, 2009

Details are in on the Windows 7 pricing structure Microsoft will use during launch. Microsoft released the box art and the Windows 7 flavors you can choose from last week.

The options Windows 7 will comes in is:

Windows 7 Starter pricing N/A- For developing markets, and an option for netbooks.

Windows 7 Home Basic pricing N/A- For developing markets

Windows 7 Home Premium $120 for upgrade; $200 for full version - it’s great that they are starting off with Home Premium, and not sticking in a “Basic” version lijke they did in Vista.

Windows 7 Professional $200 for upgrade; $300 for full version – I’m assuming the pro edition will include Terminal Services, and Remote Desktop (RDP) functionality like it did in XP.

Windows 7 Ultimate $220 for upgrade; $320 for full version – the ultimate version of Windows. Basically, the Enterprise version that regular people can buy. It has BitLocker, notably, and a few other advanced features. It seems like visibility of this will be low, outside of a few “special promotions” from vendors occasionally, to minimize confusion.

Half price pre-order deal:

People in the US, Canada or Japan who already own a PC running XP or Vista will be able to pre-order the upgrade disc for half the price of what it will retail for. The pre-order deal starts Friday, June 26th, and will run for a limited time.

Windows_7_pricing

The Deals:

Windows 7 Home Premium, usually $120, will cost $50, and Windows 7 Professional, usually $200, will cost $100. Windows 7 Ultimate is not part of this discount plan, but it might get its own incentive plan later on.

If you buy a PC starting Friday, June 26th, you should be covered under a FREE upgrade plan. So you can buy that Vista laptop, or desktop over the weekend, and should be able to get a free Windows 7 upgrade once it is available.

The Windows 7 release date is October 22, 2009.