The Windows 7 upgrade editions will save the user the same amount of money. Here is a table that is outlining the prices of Windows 7 and Windows Vista editions:

The price for the Windows 7 editions with a full basic feature set range from $200 for Windows 7 Home Premium to $320 for Windows 7 Ultimate. More exciting than this is a pre-order program for Windows 7 that is offering Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional at greatly reduced prices. Users who have the intention to buy Windows 7 should make use of the pre-order program as it will make Windows 7 Home Premium available for $50 and Windows 7 Professional for $100 which means that buyers save $150 when pre-ordering Windows 7 Home Premium and $200 for Windows 7 Professional.

The price is similar in all Windows 7 launch countries. Take a look at the table below for all information about pre-order prices:

Opportunities to pre-order Windows 7 will start on June 26 for users from the United States, Canada and Japan while users from the UK, France and Germany will have to wait until July 15. The pre-order period lasts until July 11 for US and Canadian users, July 5 for Japanese users and August 14 for users from the UK, Germany and France. Pre-orders will be available in the official Microsoft store but also at selected retailers such as Amazon.

Microsoft has also revealed another interesting aspect of the launch of Windows 7 in Europe. You may have heard that Microsoft is going to offer Windows 7 without Internet Explorer in Europe. Windows 7 E will be sold exclusively in Europe and one of the side-effects is that Europeans will not be able to upgrade to Windows 7. That’s right, no Windows 7 upgrades will be sold in Europe. But that’s good news apparently as Microsoft has made the decision to sell Windows 7 full versions with the upgrade price tag in Europe.

The best time to get a legit version of Windows 7 begins tomorrow (or on July 15 if you are from Europe). Big question, will you pre-order the operating system or buy Windows 7 later? I personally think that the price is really attractive considering that you get the Home Premium edition for $50.

Users who are not intimidated by the reboot cycle will run into another problem starting August 1 where the operating system will expire completely.

Users still running the beta release of Windows 7 have the option to upgrade to the release candidate build. Microsoft has blocked a direct upgrade but that can be fixed by editing one resource file. Interested users can visit the Windows 7 Beta To RC Upgrade article over at Windows 7 News. The same technique can most likely also be used to upgrade the Windows 7 Release Candidate to the final release of the operating system.

The Windows 7 Release Candidate can still be downloaded from the official Microsoft website. Product keys are handed out as well on those pages.

Today Ina Fried published an article at Cnet that confirmed October 22 as the launch date for the next Microsoft operating system. The source is Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte who confirmed the release data in an interview. Veghte also confirmed that the RTM release of Windows 7 should be finished in mid to end July 2009.

Users who are interested into buying a new computer system right now should better wait until June 26 as this is the beginning of the free upgrade period which is said to end in the beginning of 2010. Users who purchase Windows Vista PCs participating in the Upgrade Option Program after June 26, 2009 can upgrade to Windows 7 for free at its release.

Windows 7 will be released in six different editions with the emphasize on the two editions Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. Both editions are successors of Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Business.

Do you have plans to purchase Windows 7 in the near future?

Microsoft made an announcement the other day on their Engineering Windows 7 blog which mentioned the extension of the feature uninstaller in Windows 7. The Windows Features control panel entry allows users to remove – or add – Microsoft programs and Windows components. Windows XP and Windows Vista made use of a similar but limited feature.

The release candidate of Windows 7 on the other hand provides access to additional programs and features that can be disabled or uninstalled by the user. Software that has been added are Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player, Windows Search, Microsoft .net Framework 3.5.1, the Windows Gadget platform and others. This is a major strategy change as Microsoft was previously seen as a company that never removed but always added to their operating systems.

But what does it mean to disable a feature in Windows 7?

If a feature is deselected, it is not available for use. This means the files (binaries and data) are not loaded by the operating system (for security-conscious customers) and not available to users on the computer. These same files are staged so that the features can easily be added back to the running OS without additional media. This staging is important feedback we have received from customers who definitely do not like to dig up the installation DVD.

It is interesting to note that the files will not be loaded by the operating system. Even more interesting would be benchmarks that compare operating system loading time with and without the features disabled. Security conscious users on the other hand will most likely disable many of the features even if disabling them does not provide any other advantages but to computer security.

This essentially means that no data will be taken over automatically to the new operating system. Experienced Windows XP users should not have a problem installing Windows 7. They also should not have a problem backing up and moving their data to the new operating system. Inexperienced users on the other hand might wonder how they can move their pictures, music, emails and applications to the new operating system.

If you are running Windows XP on a computer system currently and want to upgrade to Windows 7 you basically have a few choices which largely depend on the storage capacities of the computer system. The easiest way would be to backup all data, format the hard drive and install Windows 7 afterwards. Some users might not like this solution. They could alternatively create and install Windows 7 on a second partition to create a dual booting operating system until all data from Windows XP has been moved to Windows 7.

Backup Data

We covered Windows Backup Software (Hard Drive Backup Software) before here at Ghacks. Both applications can be used to backup a hard drive. This obviously requires another storage device with enough hard drive space to transfer all of the data. It might be a good idea to backup the data even if you have the intention to install Windows 7 on a different partition. This might be less important for individuals but should be essential for business computers.

Installing Windows 7

We recommend to install Windows 7 on another partition or hard drive at the beginning. This will essentially create a dual-boot system with the option to switch between Windows XP and Windows 7. This is the easiest way to keep the Windows XP data for the time being as Windows 7 will not overwrite or tamper with the data of the Windows XP installation.

The other option would be to format the partition containing Windows XP and install Windows 7 on the (now) empty partition. The data of the Windows XP partition would be gone for good if it would not have been backed up first.

The third option is to install Windows 7 on the Windows XP partition without formatting the hard drive first. Most computer savvy users do not recommend this option as it can lead to all kinds of troubles and problems. It has virtually no benefits as the programs and applications of Windows XP cannot be used in Windows 7 without reinstalling them.

Moving data from Windows XP to Windows 7

Microsoft has created a tool called Windows Easy Transfer
which can be used to transfer data from Windows XP to Windows Vista. The application should also work in Windows 7 as Microsoft recommends it in the Windows 7 installation guide. The software can be used to transfer data over network, usb cable or disk to another operating system. It will copy files like music or pictures but also emails and settings to the new operating system.

If Windows 7 has been installed on a second partition or hard drive data can simply be copied by dragging and dropping it to the new partition. Some data might need to be imported, for example web browser bookmarks or emails. Please note that it is usually not possible to move installed applications to the new operating system. It is necessary to install them again when the new operating system is running.
If backups have been created the data can also be restored or extracted from the backups to the new operating system.

Verdict:

Inexperienced users will find it troublesome to move data from their old operating system to Windows 7. Microsoft should make sure to include a step by step guide prior to the release of Windows 7 that explains how to migrate the data to the new operating system.

If you run into troubles you can visit our sister site Windows 7 News or the Windows 7 Forum to find help with the migration and other Windows 7 related difficulties.

Microsoft made an announcement today on the official Windows Vista blog concerning the name of the next operating system. To everyone’s surprise the codename was kept and the next Microsoft operating system will therefor be named Windows 7.

It was clear to almost everyone that Microsoft needed to steer away from Windows Vista which received some bad press since its release. Some popular suggestions where Windows 2010 or Windows XP2. Still, Microsoft managed to surprise by choosing Windows 7.

The reason – the official one – for keeping the name was simplicity which is a good argument and could be a defining concept for the upcoming operating system. Your thoughts on this? Was it a sound choice or would you have preferred a different name?

Most experts do agree that Windows 7 will be available sooner than they had expected. Microsoft was always speaking of a 3 years since Windows Vista release date which could be any date in 2009 and 2010. As of now most seem to suggest that Windows 7 might hit the streets no later than June 2009 which would be very early considering that Microsoft is putting lots of efforts on Windows Vista promotion currently.

Back to the screenshots. They show the changes to the Microsoft Paint and Wordpad modules which got an overhaul just like the Windows Calculator which broke news earlier this year. The screenshots seem to suggest that part of the Control Panel is also getting an overhaul. The Display Properties for one are looking completely different compared to previous versions of Windows. While those changes might make sense Microsoft should also consider that many users might feel a little bit lost in Windows 7.

Windows Media Player light sounds like a nice idea if the client is loading faster and more responsive. Anything that you want to add?