MS Confirms Six Different Versions of Windows 7 758
darien writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 7 will be offered in six different editions. In a seeming admission that the numerous versions of Vista were confusing to consumers, the company says that this time its marketing will focus on just two editions — 'Home Premium' and 'Professional.' But the reality is more complex, with different packages offering different subsets of the total range of Windows 7 features."
Original Sources (Score:5, Informative)
From Paul Thurrott's [winsupersite.com] site (which breaks each version down by feature--don't ask me how he got them).
Here's the most reliable source [microsoft.com] I can find where it is revealed in a Q&A with the general manager for Windows at Microsoft.
The AP [google.com] has picked it and quotes passages from the Q&A session. So I think the majority of this is coming from a Q&A session with Mike Ybarra, general manager for Windows.
Which gives me pause and causes me to wonder
Re:Starter Edition (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
Starter Edition: A lightweight version for netbook computers, that will only be capable of running three applications concurrently.
Maybe someone can educate me here: are EeePCs and subnotebooks so underpowered that they can only run three programs at a time? It seems like a purely artificial limit repackaged as a "performance" feature.
Yeah, I don't know where they got that data point in the article. From the original source [microsoft.com], Mike Ybarra mentions netbooks twice:
The second change is that we have designed Windows 7 so different editions of Windows 7 can run on a very broad set of hardware, from small-notebook PCs (sometimes referred to as netbooks) to full gaming desktops. This way, customers can enable the scenarios they want across the broad hardware choices they have.
Ybarra: At beta we've had a lot of people running our most premium, full-featured offering on small-notebook PCs (netbooks) with good experiences and good results. So we're pleased to see that on this class of hardware Windows 7 is running well. And of course we will continue to tune Windows 7 for performance as we move through the engineering cycle.
Nowhere does he say anything about the 3 app limitation and you'll note he mentions that in beta their most full featured offering runs on netbooks.
I do not know where PCPro got their information but I think this Q&A session is what started it. He seems optimistic about all versions of Windows 7 being usable on netbooks but who knows without getting field results (Vista capable, anyone)?
Re:Obviously.... (Score:2, Informative)
I have windows 7 beta on my laptop - so far so good. When it comes out I will buy it for my desktop...My only annoyance is I will need to buy it twice (64 bit desktop, 32 bit laptop). Setting up the laptop to work with my wireless network was easy as pie actually. Least amount of configuration ever.
Why does "ultimate" need to exist? (Score:4, Informative)
Is there a reason Microsoft cant put BitLocker, AppLocker, Cornerstone, Direct Access, Branch Cache etc into Windows 7 Professional and then just have Enterprise be a volume license product (like XP pro corp was for XP pro)?
Is it purely a case of "those who need it can pay extra for Ultimate and get this stuff, those who dont shouldn't have to pay for it"? (i.e. money) Or is there more to it?
Re:Obviously.... (Score:5, Informative)
the inability to permenantly remove the toolbar warning that I do not have my security settings on
the solution is here [mydigitallife.info]
Re:6 versions? (Score:2, Informative)
No it doesn't - The question is what do you get when you multiply 6 by 8....
Getting waaaay off topic here but I think I just hit a new geek high (low?) by immidiately recognizing you're wrong. It was 6 by 9...
Re:3 versions needed only (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
Since just this morning [economicpopulist.org] apparently....if 10x my salary as a software engineer is a limit....
Re:Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
This is why we won't see dx10 on XP.
There was no architectural reason why DX10 couldn't have been ported to XP.
The reason we won't see DX10 on XP is because it was a gimmick to get you to buy Vista. They had dropped WinFS and so many other features. IE 7 had an XP port. Except for Avalon, the new UI, MS had no leverage to get people to migrate. Too bad they botched the initial release of DX10, because that niche market (gamers) were totally turned off by them dorking it up.
Re:Obviously.... (Score:3, Informative)
Linus did not say that. His exact quotes are:
So Linus says that because of all the different things Linux has to do, one distro cannot handle all of it. It's just a necessity and common sense.
Re:Obviously.... (Score:1, Informative)
"all made by different groups of people"
And YOU were saying...?
No, Canotical doesn't make all of those. They make two.
Re:Original Sources (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Starter Edition (Score:3, Informative)
It's like saying "Well his Nissan Maxima has leather seats and Bose stereo, mine doesn't - that's an artificial decision"...response "So is the price tag".
I get your point, but my point is that they're taking out functionality that was already there and then charging less for it. So to rephrase your analogy as I see the situation, it would be if Nissan built all Maximas with leather seats and Bose stereos, but then at the dealership they stripped off the leather and replaced it with canvas (or whatever), and put in a crappy stereo using the excuse that only audiophiles really need nice stereos.
I don't mind paying extra to add extra features, but it seems silly to put in a artificial road block to make it seem like I'm getting more with the Home Premium Edition.
It's called market segmentation - something companies have done for a long time.
For example:
Intel did it with processors - remember when some the 486sx was a DX with the floating point processor disabled?
Shippers often ship a next day and 2 day package to the local distribution point at the same time, but often deliver the 2 day only after it sits a day.
To your car analogy, cars sometimes will ship with features disabled and a key connector left out (even though the rest of the wiring is in place) such as for a cellphone interface.
This allows them to sell at various price points and get more total sales. One customer might pay 10$ for an item and be willing to not have certain features, but not 15$ while another will pay 15$ if certain features are included. this way, they get the 10$ and 15$ sale for a total of $25. If they left all the features in they'd still get the $10 from the first buyer but only 10$, instead of 15$ from the second since the 10$ version now contains the features they want as well. As a result, the seller loses $5.
It's often cheaper to leave in features and merely disable them than design and build a separate version.
Why am I not surprised? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's go to the top of the list. Enterprise is just for businesses purchasing bulk licenses. Ultimate is the same as Vista Ultimate, except you're only ever going to be dealing with Ultimate if you are a techie and know where to find it - it won't be sold through normal distribution channels.
The only two left are Home Premium and Professional. These are the only two actual consumers will deal with. They are exactly the same as XP Home and XP Pro; in fact, the only reason it's called Home Premium is because test users thought Home was a downgrade from Home Premium, so the kept the name. So there you have it: there are TWO versions of 7, and four versions for niche markets that will never be sold in stores. It's a lot like XP, where Home and Pro were considered the only two editions, but there were lots of others (Starter, MCE, Tablet PC, Embedded). But in the case, people were smart enough to understand that consumers only had to choose between two.
It's interesting that Gizmodo and Endgadget (and any places that quoted their stories) made all this very clear, but Slashdot had to go find the one site that had their facts wrong.
Re:Home vs Pro, the rest is market-specific (Score:3, Informative)
And the only difference between those two main SKUS?
Whether you can bind to Active Directory or not.
Thats it. The hooks and APIs are even in Home for Active Directory, just disabled through registry keys and other such nonsense. So why not just roll it into one distro and be done with it?
Re:3 versions needed only (Score:1, Informative)
While correct for retail versions, OEM versions don't have the same flexibility to switch.
Re: Still one user (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
If we're playing server OS then Microsoft's offerings breakdown like this:
Windows 7 Starter
Windows 7 Home Basic
Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows 7 Professional
Windows 7 Ultimate
Windows 7 Enterprise
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Web Server 2008
Windows Storage Server 2008
Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows Essential Business Server 2008
Windows Home Server
And until recently you could also buy the server licenses with and witout Hyper-V. There's no way anyone can argue Microsoft aren't playing games with their various editions, the server OS editions are in-particular are selling a slightly less crippled version of the same thing but at least from Server 2008 onwards they're being honest, anyone who has a volume license gets two dvds one with 32 bit OS and one with 64 bit.
Re:3 versions needed only (Score:3, Informative)
If you're talking about the impossibility of "upgrading" from x86 to amd64, as it were, well, no - that should be possible. The problem is not to do with the boot environment but rather the way the system handles "thunking" and the way it handles auxillary files. Check out %systemroot%\WinSxS and c:\Program Files (x86) vs C:\Program Files or similar directory structures. It copies any dlls that the system wants to put in system32 in there, and then references it all in a massive lookup table, allowing multiple dlls of the same type/name to be installed concurrently, without having the problems that were present in 9x. However, the difference between 64 and 32 is key, such that I don't think it's possible to "upgrade" a 32 bit install to a 64 bit install if you've installed many programs. Well, not to expect it to work afterwards.
But there shouldn't be any problem in taking a base install up to 64 from 32 after the fact.
Not that I would even try. Who wouldn't install 64bit at this point in time anyways? What's the benefit to not installing 64bit?
Re:Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Obviously.... (Score:3, Informative)
of your examples 4 are official products (with 1 not being intended for the general public & 1 being a server) so you have 2 main releases, which is like um XP and a server (like windows 2000). There are a few oem pakages (just like XP), but there are not 7 different versions each limited in a different way.
Re:Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
Having used both I call tell you simply the difference. Video Games.
Back in 2000, my Dell came preinstalled with Windows me. Which was horrible. As soon as Win2k came out (shortly after) I installed it and it was fine. However it did have problems playing some games. Windows XP came out shortly after, which I then installed, and it had no problems playing anything. So while Win2k was good, it was responsive, did mostly what I wanted, it did have problems running some non-business type software.
Also another advantage that I did use back then on a built machine was dual processors. XP Pro could handle two. Win2k is only one. Also there were 64bit versions of XP, and not for Win2k. Today everything in hardware is 64bit, and 2 and 4 processing cores, none of which Win2k can handle I don't think (I know the software isn't there yet for 64bit or parallel optimized programing, but all the same...). So I guess there are quite a few reasons XP was superior to Win2k after all.