prophetik music Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 so, i know that threads have come up occasionally about this, but i figured i'd start another one. windows 7 will release on oct. 22, 2009. it will release in several editions, each offering different limitations and at different price points. it will be significantly more backwards-compatible than vista was, and will feature a streamlined interface with improved networking, folder filing, and fewer user notifications. i'd suggest checking out wikipedia's articles on features that are new to the OS and features that have been removed. editions confirmed as of now (pasted from wikipedia): Windows 7 Starter An option for "folks that will do very limited things with their PCs": the Windows Aero theme is not included, and it will be not available in a 64-bit variant. This edition will be available pre-installed on computers through system integrators or computer manufacturers. Windows 7 Home Basic Windows 7 Home Basic will be available in emerging markets such as Brazil, People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. It will not be available in countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates , Saudi Arabia , New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Windows 7 Home Basic can run an unlimited number of applications, but some Aero options are excluded along with several new features. Windows 7 Home Premium This edition contains features aimed at the home market segment, such as Windows Media Center, Windows Aero and touch-screen controls. Windows 7 Professional This edition is targeted toward enthusiasts and small business users. It includes all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium, and adds the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain. Additional features include operating as a Remote Desktop server, location aware printing, Encrypting File System, and Presentation Mode. Windows 7 Enterprise This edition targets the enterprise segment of the market and will be sold through volume licensing to companies which have Software Assurance contract with Microsoft.[13] Additional features include support for Multilingual User Interface (MUI) packages, BitLocker Drive Encryption, and UNIX application-support. Not available through retail or OEM channels, this edition will be distributed through Microsoft Software Assurance (SA). As a result it includes several SA-only benefits, including a license allowing the running of multiple virtual machines, access to Virtual PC Express, and activation via VLK. Windows 7 Ultimate Windows 7 Ultimate contains the same features as Windows 7 Enterprise, but unlike that edition it will be available to home users on an individual license basis. Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional users will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate for a fee using Windows Anytime Upgrade if they wish to do so. Unlike Windows Vista Ultimate, the Windows 7 Ultimate edition will not include the Windows Ultimate Extras feature or any exclusive features. now, i know i'm not the only one who worshiped the beta and release candidates when they were available. anyone else out there have experience with this, or is planning on picking it up on day one like me? via edge: Just as a bump, amazon.com has windows 7 home premium up for preorder, 50 bucks. Card will not be charged till ship date, free shipping, plus this.# Running Windows Vista? # If you have Windows Vista, you can purchase Windows 7 Upgrade versions. You can do a clean install (back up your files, clean install, and reinstall your applications) or an in -place upgrade (Windows 7 installs over Windows Vista). # Running Earlier Versions? # If you have Windows XP or Windows 2000, you can purchase Windows 7 Upgrade versions. But you must back up your files, clean install, and reinstall your applications. Home premium - http://astore.amazon.com/overclocked02-20/detail/B002DHLUWK (djp edit - OCR aStore!) professional for 99 - http://astore.amazon.com/overclocked02-20/detail/B002DHGM50 (djp edit - OCR aStore!) or the MS site - http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102 HOLY CRAP! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skummel Maske Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Does anyone know how well it handles audio yet? Vista isn't very good at handling that, apparently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyleJCrb Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I have fewer reservations about 7 than I did with Vista, but I'll still likely be waiting for awhile. Give them a chance to work out the kinks that inevitably ship with new OSes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Bottle Rocket Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I'll wait till the day they roll out the service pack 2 for it. XP-SP3 Still performs quite solidly for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Wow, won't Microsoft ever learn? There's no reason to have so many versions of an OS. They got railed for it with Vista and it's going to happen again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Bottle Rocket Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 But it's such a nice excuse to overprice things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Native Jovian Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 Wow, won't Microsoft ever learn? There's no reason to have so many versions of an OS. They got railed for it with Vista and it's going to happen again. What difference does it make? Buy the one you want and don't worry about the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 The difference is that to consumers it's confusing and irritating. Buy the wrong version and you might cut out features that you needed/wanted, or you might buy more than you need. Again, this already happened with Vista, so there's absolutely no reason to expect that the exact same thing isn't going to happen. It's annoying. They should have, at most, two versions: Home and Professional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwaltzvald Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 What difference does it make? Buy the one you want and don't worry about the others. Not to mention based on the first post, the different versions are available in specific formats; Starter = dell/hp pcs (will always go for building my own so no thanks) Home Basic = Not in the US Home Premium = Win7 Home edition with Media Center Win7 Prof = (in my eyes) Win XP with a few extra features Win7 Enterprise = Win7 Ultimate except targeted to large companies Win7 Ultimate = Win7 Enterprise except reversed to single license instead of large volume licensing Basically... There's only 2 that ought to be focused on (imo) which is Windows 7 Professional and Windows Ultimate. Not that difficult unless one wants the media center edition (Win7 Premium) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big giant circles Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 What difference does it make? Buy the one you want and don't worry about the others. hearing these words from you made me lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 3, 2009 Author Share Posted June 3, 2009 Not to mention based on the first post, the different versions are available in specific formats; Starter = dell/hp pcs (will always go for building my own so no thanks) Home Basic = Not in the US Home Premium = Win7 Home edition with Media Center Win7 Prof = (in my eyes) Win XP with a few extra features Win7 Enterprise = Win7 Ultimate except targeted to large companies Win7 Ultimate = Win7 Enterprise except reversed to single license instead of large volume licensing Basically... There's only 2 that ought to be focused on (imo) which is Windows 7 Professional and Windows Ultimate. Not that difficult unless one wants the media center edition (Win7 Premium) this is a pretty good point. you look at that list and it scares you, but there's really only two major editions, pro and ultimate. enterprise is the volume-licensed version of ultimate and won't be used by consumers, home premium is the HTPC version of pro. the rest, we won't see on a computer (unless you're a business person or you actually buy PCs from dell or hp). not that complex, when you break it down. there's still a silly number of licensed names for all that, though. edit: it's also worth noting that the difference in price between the bottom (available in the us, home premium) and top (ultimate) is only going to be about a hundred dollars. so, based on that, the scale between each edition should only be 20-25$ difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdgeCrusher Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 So dell and hp computers will have starter? Hmm. I figured they would premium on some, cause I know the dell I have now has vista premium on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwaltzvald Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 So dell and hp computers will have starter? Hmm. I figured they would premium on some, cause I know the dell I have now has vista premium on it. I'd imagine some will have premium but will advertise them as the "Windows 7 Media Center Edition" by retailers. Windows 7 Home Premium is very misleading as when i first saw it, I just thought of XP Home edition rather than something as powerful as Professional or Ultimate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 starter's for cheap computers (read: netbooks) only. until recently, they weren't going to let you run more than three apps at the same time on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedTigrr Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 While I like that they posted the release date, my #1 concern is when are they going to give us price points? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maruku Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 Sweet, this is awesome. I use the Release Candidate for my job (IT stuff) and so far it's the best Windows I've used to date. I liked Vista but it had that huge rocky period before SP 1 came out. I have had absolutely no issues whatsoever with the system yet. It runs games fine, it runs, 3D modeling software from years back. It runs every extremely well and actually more efficiently than previous versions. I can't wait to get the retail version for my home computer . As for the audio options somebody asked about; unfortunately they're just about the same as they are in Vista Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 the audio stack's been cleaned up, yeah. there's not all the issues that are present in vista. there won't be as many driver issues since people will actually have time to program for them, either, which will help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitty Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 MS told me in an email that the RC will shut down every two hours March 10th, 2010...which means I will be using the free version of Windows 7 until then. I'm still running the beta (have to install the RC soon) and it's been rock solid for me, much more than Vista and even XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 lifehacker ran an interesting article yesterday comparing w7 to osx leopard - not in terms of productivity or speed, but feature to feature. it's an interesting read, at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nec5 Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 They should have, at most, two versions: Home and Professional.Dissident detected. You have been reported to Microsoft. Incoming Cease and Desist. Most people want basic Windows w/ Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. Microsoft knows this and will never give this combo to you without extra payment for Office. But they will throw in useless things like Encarta Encyclopedia. Hurray! Wait, does that first post really offer 6 versions? With that many versions, I may as well force myself to get into Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwaltzvald Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 does that first post really offer 6 versions? With that many versions, I may as well force myself to get into Linux. Did you just ignore the other posts, in particularly mine..? I broke it down for you to two :/ edit: Oh wait... NOW I see what you did there~! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 4, 2009 Author Share Posted June 4, 2009 if you read anything in this thread, you'd know that some of those versions were for other countries, or for pre-built pcs from specific manufacturers, or designed for HTPCs, or specifically set up for business use. which leaves two versions - pro and ultimate. edit: just figured i'd spell it out. i know he was making a (bad) funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwordBreaker Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 I just read that XP Mode is only available to "Professional" and above. If so, then this sucks. I don't really need professional...but XP Mode is extremely important to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted June 7, 2009 Author Share Posted June 7, 2009 most computers won't even be able to handle it anyways. you've gotta have a vt-capable cpu, and only certain cpus are actually able to handle it - check your system specs. it's gotta allow for 'virtualization technology'. it's not as big a deal as people make it out to be. your performance in xp will suck due to the simple nature that you're running two OSes at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulinEther Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I still don't understand why we're overlooking Premium. Will most of the OEM computers/laptops in the middle-to-below-top-of-the-line bracket not be using Premium? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.