The Six Degrees of Windows 7

Unless you live under a rock, you've heard about the next version of Windows to supersede Windows Vista, Windows 7.

Deciding whether to upgrade to Windows 7 when available is enough of a mental exercise however, as Microsoft did with Vista, they'll be offering numerous different versions, or SKUs, of the product intended for use by different groups of users in different types of environments.

Although this information has been available since February of this year, I thought it might be good to quickly review it again since the public release of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) was recently released to MSDN and TechNet. Things may change between the date of this posting and the actual "gold" release date but as of now, there are six different versions that will be available as follows:

1) Windows 7 Home Premium - This edition has partial Aero effects, no support for Multi-touch, and no Windows Media Center and will be available to all users worldwide through retail and OEMs.

2) Windows 7 Professional - This edition adds features missing in Home Premium including encryption and XP Mode, and will also be available to all users worldwide through retail and OEMs.

3) Windows 7 Starter Edition - This edition is intended for installation and use on lower-powered Netbooks and will have a limitation of three concurrent applications, excluding Windows Explorer, Control Panel Applets, the Command prompt and Task Manager. It will be a 32-bit version only and lack the Aero Glass theme (probably to reduce the need for more powerful graphics) and support for Multi-Touch. An in depth look at Windows 7 Starter Edition is available at the WindowsITPro site.

4) Windows 7 Home Basic Edition - This edition is intended for "emerging markets" such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. This version has no artificial limitation on the number of applications, but some Aero Glass options are excluded along with some new features.

5) Windows 7 Enterprise - This full-blown edition is targeted at the enterprise market and will be sold through volume licensing to Microsoft Software Assurance contract customers. This edition adds adding Multilingual User Interface (MUI) which allows for installation of multiple interface languages on a single system, Unix feature support, encryption features, and support for Windows XP Mode virtualization.

6) Windows 7 Ultimate - This version will include the Windows 7 Enterprise features and will be available to home users on an individual license basis.

It's probable that the computers sold this coming holiday season will include either the Windows 7 Premium or Professional editions depending on the specific OEM with Windows 7 Ultimate for higher end systems or as an upgrade. Vista may even show up on some models from some vendors with an option for upgrade to Windows 7.

It remains to be seen how many Netbook vendors will ship Windows 7 Starter Edition as many offer other non-Microsoft operating system options including Ubuntu. It will also depend on politics, profit and whether the OEMs feel that buyers will be interested in an abbreviated version of Windows 7. Personally, I would want a Netbook powerful enough to run Ultimate but that's another post...