Earlier this week Microsoft finally confirmed to the world that Windows 7 will hit general availability October 22nd, a date in which we've all been waiting for. Now that we know the date, our next question is what will Windows 7 cost consumers? Apparently Best Buy has the answer to that question, as Engadget is reporting that a leaked memo has revealed the upgrade plans for Windows 7.
According to the image above, Best Buy will offer customers to order a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99.99. As far as I'm concerned this is going to give a huge break to today's consumers as they are tightening their pocket books in order to prevail through these tough economic times. So is this really cheaper than Windows Vista? Let's examine the costs.
When Windows Vista was launched back in November of 2006, the upgrade options and pricing were: Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade $129.95 and Vista Business Upgrade was $199.95. With that in mind users who are upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 are going to be saving between 60 and 50% this time around. Now if this is legitimate, I think it's time to say that the tech world and blogosphere alike are fixing to applause Microsoft for making the right decision.
Looking at the memo a bit further it appears that Best Buy is going to presale select Windows 7 SKUs on BestBuy.com starting June 26th, so start saving those pennies!
Me too! I would upgrade to 7 in an instant if they cost that much over here!
Hm thats close to red hat price is there some correlation there? One can only wonder. But it still doesnt beat fedora and ubantu. Fedora 11 is coming along great. But i installed windows 7 build 7201 in a virtual box and must tells yous its rock solid and fast as heck. 10 to 15 min install. I didnt even time it its just that i got annoyed that it finished so quick and i could not finish my other task. Also the space it occupies is like 7.36 gig for a clean instal of 32 bit ultimate. That is half of vista. I just hope I dont have to run slim tool on this one to strip out unused 8088 code. Mac humor there.
Same. Day of release, I'd buy it for that much, no questions.
I'll have to agree. ain't no way would I pay for Windows 7 pro for $200. not worth that kind of price. $100 is even a bit much but better than $200
Hahaha you beat me to it!
did you all just read the first line? this offer is only available at bestbuy.com for 16 days.
Umm, installation on real iron should actually be FASTER than on a VM, dude.
I'll admit, 10 - 15 minutes does seem a bit fast for a Win7 install, but not totally out of the question, either, at least for a clean (ie non-upgrade) installation.
yes, something that the story completly misses
Not nessicaraly true. If you are installing to your VM using an ISO file then it would be faster because a hard drive is a heck of a lot faster than an optical drive. If you are installing from an optical drive in both cases then I would agree, real equipment should be a tad quicker.
Too bad it doesn't say how much buying the standalone Windows 7 Ultimate copy will be. That's what I'm gonna buy.
Most previous versions of Windows back to at least Win95 would allow an upgrade without a prev version installed. Sometimes it would ask for the prev disk to verify. So I would hope so.
Peace,
James
Peace,
James
Vista requires you to do an upgrade from inside the OS. It breaks that classic tradition. I have no idea how 7 will work in that regard.
Thanks for the info. My Vista copies were full versions. I guess I can suffer through a quick-ish Vista install to get to Win7.
Still, that's better then my first beta of Win95/Chicago - 40+ floppies!
So let's say you have Vista Upgrade and 7 Upgrade and they have the same system... you'll have to install XP, upgrade to Vista and upgrade to 7
(jk btw, I know something doesn't make sense in what I said)
Correct. This was true for Vista as well. It would prompt you to reboot into the main OS and then start the upgrade.
Go Best Buy! Proving more and more that you are as dumb as what most people think you are.
I was at Best Buy last week looking for a copy of iLife '09 and the girl I talked to had no clue what I was talking about, and worse she didn't even know what a "Mac" computer was and they sell iMacs and MacBooks there.
Also, if I'm told a software package has increased productivity, I know exactly what that means. As a matter of fact there's nothing incorrect about the phrase itself -- the OS does work too, not just people. The computer produces things and gets stuff done, not just the person using it... so it is quite acceptable to say 'improved productivity' even if this explanation is not what they mean.
I'm a Mac.
I'm a PC.
I'm a RETARD! (BB girl)
1: Hurmoth is right.... OS's can't have improved productivity, since they don't do anything, the user has to improve the productivity
2: I can do WinKey and type stuff the same way in Vista.. btw can't you do that now in Windows XP as well with Windows Desktop Search?
1) Boots quicker to let me get to work faster
2) Performs better to complete tasks faster
3) Allows quicker switching between apps.
How's that?
Go Best Buy! Proving more and more that you are as dumb as what most people think you are.
To use a similar logic to which you did, of which I'm not disputing, makes sense -
How can a shop be dumb? The people who run it, or work there, could possibly be dumb, but an actual shop cannot be "dumb"
Go Best Buy! Proving more and more that you are as dumb as what most people think you are.
To use a similar logic to which you did, of which I'm not disputing, makes sense -
How can a shop be dumb? The people who run it, or work there, could possibly be dumb, but an actual shop cannot be "dumb"
Actually a couple of the reps I dealt with seemed to have a few screws loose. They did make an admirable effort to help me out.
P.S. - I was looking at LCD tvs. Not computers. He assumed the bleached and overly bright screen was normal. They came over and tweaked the screen back to what it should be and it looked much better. I walked out with it but I could tell they wanted me to take the higher end model right below it which cost an additional $400.
I definitely will upgrade my Vista Home Premium anyway, using the 7 from the beginning and I love it!
I think the lower price would just be perfectamente in these economic times and it would erase the Vista stain once and for all.
It's entirely possible here that MS is raising OEM prices, but cutting retail.
Re-read the memo, it's not stating that the program is a "Vista that works campaign" as you explains it.
I read the article. Yes, it is a Vista that works campaign. Claiming that it is more productive and uses less resources is the same. Sometimes what an ad says and what it means are two different things. This is really transparent in this case. This is kind of Marketing 101 in college.
It wasn't originally posted here, so the blame is not on Neowin. Every website makes a mistake, we've made ours. Please get over yourself kind sir.
Neowin should have taken the high road, but it seems it's business as usual.
So sad, to have fallen so far.
Neowin should have taken the high road, but it seems it's business as usual.
So sad, to have fallen so far.
You should fix this! It should be General Availability (GA), not RTM (Release to Manufacturing). There is a huge diff as RTM is expected to come in mid to end of July according to many sources ...
I'm getting old, but I think XP RTMd in August and GA was around NOV of 2001.
RTM: August 24, 2001
Retail: October 25, 2001
Dang it I knew I got the terms confused! Fixed
You can upgrade XP to any Vista disc (not registering it, so as a temp) and then upgrade the Vista install to a legit and registered Windows 7.
That assumes that the machine can run Vista/7 with the req'd specs of ram, display adapter, etc.
At least one source has said that the upgrades referred to here will work on XP. It's entirely possible that launching the upgrade within XP will also launch Windows Easy Transfer to migrate settings and files.
After this is complete, setup.exe would then proceed with a full, clean install of Win7, and walk the user through the restore of their data from Easy Transfer.
Just a guess, mind you...
That assumes that the machine can run Vista/7 with the req'd specs of ram, display adapter, etc.
Well, what of people who have Vista Ultimate-- what's their upgrade path? (it's probably explained somewhere, but all the results I can find in a hurry are about the OEM PC free upgrade offers)
Guess we'll have to wait then.
Windows since XP uses NTFS 3.1, although Vista/Server 2008/7 added in a few new features.
Don't know what you're getting at here.
Since all three of you have no clue actually i will explain it to you. If you format your drive using Vista and then try to install XP on it you wont be able. You can do other way around. Reason is that XP NTFS file system and Vista NTFS file system are not the same. Vista's version has some updates. Same will apply for Windows 7. When you do upgrade you can't format your drive if upgrade version of Windows 7 let you do full install (as long as it detects appropriate older OS installed), you will not be able to format your drive meaning you will be running on older version of NTFS. Also old Windows will be stored into Windows.Old folder. As I said this upgrade is CRAP.
I hope it's easier for you to understand now.
But...why would you "format your drive using Vista" to then install XP? All you need to do to upgrade from XP to 7 is to upgrade XP to Vista in place, then Vista to 7 in place, as long as you have a system with the right specs.
And note that, in this scenario, you can upgrade a FAT32 XP partition to NTFS in place, and Vista will upgrade to the slightly newer NTFS in place. I assume Windows 7 would do that as well.
So, again, I have to ask, since all of these scenarios work just fine, why do you say "upgrade is crap", when clearly it works for millions of people?
I hope it's easier for you to understand now.
Ooops, I meant..."...than forcing consumers with no genuine software at all to buy an original *full* copy, *then to buy at least* a fake upgrade."
You want the FULL version? Expect to pay double the upgrade price.
You want the FULL version? Expect to pay double the upgrade price.
$100 for Home Premium and $200 for Professional is still pretty fair, given how much Vista was at launch (in some places).
I just hope MS is successful with this, because then I can show off. :p
Last edited by Luis Mazza on 06 Jun 2009 - 00:54
I've been running the RC on said laptop since its release, and it's worked flawlessly.
* = this is how people got around that limitation with Vista, install it first with no product key and then do an upgrade install on top of that with your upgrade key and it worked a treat (till MS patched it that is)
Will the upgrade disk allow you to do a clean install of Windows 7 if you have Vista installed? Or just an in place upgrade.
I feel like in this day in age there should not be and upgrade and full disk, just one full install disk at the upgrade price
Last edited by jjrambo on 06 Jun 2009 - 17:41
That dogma has been outdated for about 5 years now.
But if you want to do the trick mentioned above, that will work to do a clean install with an upgrade disc, yes.
are you from a parallel universe? your theories don't check out on this planet!
Lets be honest people who complained about the price of Vista had very good reasons to do so.
If this is true i'm happy to hear it and will definately pre-order Windows 7 and install it as soon as possible.
Next time a new version of my OS comes out, I will just download the ISO and burn it, for free, legally.
mmmmmm, Linux is good.
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