Windows 7 Product Editions

[13Gigatons]

Windows 7 Starter

Market: Emerging markets, with new PCs only
Key features: Enhanced taskbar, Jump Lists, Windows Media Player, Backup and Restore, Action Center, Device Stage, Play To, Fax and Scan, basic games
What's missing: Aero Glass, many Aero desktop enhancements, Windows Touch, Media Center, Live thumbnail previews, Home Group creation

This version will only be sold through PC makers to users in emerging markets. As with previous Windows Starter Edition products, it is limited in some ways: You can run only three applications at once, don't get Windows 7's full mobility capabilities, and can participate in but not create a Home Group.

Windows 7 Home Premium

Market: Mainstream retail market
Key features: Aero Glass, Aero Background, Windows Touch, Home Group creation, Media Center, DVD playback and authoring, premium games
What's missing: Domain join, Remote Desktop host, advanced backup, EFS, Mobility Center, Offline Folders

The volume Windows 7 offering for consumers builds on Starter and includes Mobility Center, Aero Glass, advanced windows navigation features like Aero Snap and Aero Peek, and multi-touch, as well as the ability to both create and participate in Home Groups. Home Premium will be sold at retail and be included with new computers.

Windows 7 Professional

Market: Mainstream retail market
Key features: Domain join, Remote Desktop host, location aware printing, EFS, Mobility Center, Presentation Mode, Offline Folders
What's missing: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD

This volume Windows 7 version builds on Home Premium and adds features like domain join, Group Policy (GP) controls, location aware printing, advanced backup, EFS, and offline folders. Pro will be sold at retail and be included with new computers

Windows 7 Enterprise

Market: Volume-license business customers only
Key features: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD
What's missing: Retail licensing

As before, Enterprise is aimed at Microsoft's Software Assurance (SA) volume license customers. This time, however, Enterprise is a superset of Professional and adds much-heralded Windows 7 features like Direct Access, Branch Cache, BitLocker, and BitLocker To Go.

Windows 7 Ultimate

Market: Retail market, limited availability
Key features: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD
What's missing: Volume licensing

For those few customers who simply must have everything, Windows 7 Ultimate offers all of the features from Enterprise but loses the volume licensing requirement. So you can think of Ultimate edition as Enterprise for consumers (and other retail customers).

Windows 7 Ultimate is kind of a wild-card. It will be available at retail and with new PCs, but Microsoft suggested that it will not be heavily marketed and will instead be "offer-based" via occasional promotions and offers from both PC makers and retailers.

"We're experimenting with the kinds of offers we can make for Windows 7 Ultimate," Veghte said. "It's going to be a low-single digit run rate (i.e. low market share) product. We expect retailers and OEMs to occasionally offer Ultimate with new PCs as part of special promotions. But in terms of run rate, it will be a tiny, tiny percentage of the volume. We will keep the marketing energy on Home Premium and Professional."

source: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

It's worse then Vista I think, why do they need home premium and professional?

I hope I get a free copy of ultimate.

 

[Modelworks]

I already get a free copy of Ultimate, but I think they should just stop with the multiple versions.
Is the content in Ultimate that much more expensive to MS than the content in Home Premium that they have to have a different version ?
I'm sick to death of explaining to people what is different about each one.

 

[fyleow]

..

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: fyleow
How is that worse than Vista? They simplified it by removing Home Basic. Regular consumers will never see Starter edition around because it's emerging markets only. They will never see Enterprise either. That leaves just Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate with the majority of users getting the Home Premium edition.

It's going to be hard choosing between Home Premium and Professional for many users that want some of the features in Home Premium and some features in Professional. That leaves only Ultimate or Enterprise which are going to be expensive.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

So we've moved to what I call a Russian doll model. Every [product edition] increments, and doesn't take away features or capabilities from the other editions. They are true supersets of each other, and additive.

Even better now is that higher version (containing more features) is all inclusive of the lower version. In other words, Professional contains ALL the features of Home Premium AND additional business-oriented features.

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Yep, this is better. Home Basic is going bye-bye, and they all build upon one another. With Vista, Home Premium had things that Business didn't, and vice versa, and if you wanted one from both you had to get Ultimate. Here, there is a chance that you can just step up to Professional and get what you need.

 

[Skitzer]

Wonder what the pricing is going to be.

 

[soonerproud]

OP, you need to go back and read Paul's article again because Microsoft specifically told him that only two versions are going to advertised to consumers. Those versions are Home Premium and Professional. Starter is only going to be sold on netbooks in the US and will not be available to retail buyers and Home basic is only available in emerging markets. Enterprise is only available in the Enterprise channels and Ultimate is basically Enterprise for retail consumers, but will not be advertised and is a niche product aimed at less than 1% of consumers.

To sum this post up there are only 2 consumer editions that will be available in the retail that will be marketed and one that will not be marketed.

Another thing to remember that is a change verses Vista versions. Each more expensive version is a superset of the previous version. Professional will have all the feature of HP, unlike Vista where Business is missing the multimedia features that are in HP. That means you will not have to buy Ultimate to get those features and some of the more advance capabilities of the business version at the same time.

Windows got cheaper just by Microsoft adding multimedia capabilities to Professional, so people that use their pc's for both work and play don't have to buy Ultimate now.

 

[mikeyes]

This is the dumbest thing ever. There should be 3 versions. Home, Professional and Ultimate.

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Skitzer
Wonder what the pricing is going to be.

Considering that we're in a state of worldwide financial collapse with no possibility of recovery for 5-8 years...

The American Dollar is under attack...

Hyper-inflation is inevitable, and...

W7 will come out a year from now...

The most likely scenario:

• Windows 7 Ultimate will be $13,599.99
• Windows 7 Starter will be open-source.
• All other versions will be dropped.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: mikeyes
This is the dumbest thing ever. There should be 3 versions. Home, Professional and Ultimate.

That's pretty much the way it is. Enterprise is volume licensing only and will only be sold to businesses. Starter is for emerging markets.

Though, it looks like if you want Mobility Center, a laptop centered feature, you'll have to go with professional

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: fyleow
How is that worse than Vista? They simplified it by removing Home Basic. Regular consumers will never see Starter edition around because it's emerging markets only. They will never see Enterprise either. That leaves just Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate with the majority of users getting the Home Premium edition.

It's going to be hard choosing between Home Premium and Professional for many users that want some of the features in Home Premium and some features in Professional. That leaves only Ultimate or Enterprise which are going to be expensive.

Or they could buy Professional and be done with it? I could understand how this would be difficult with the Vista SKUs but with 7's this has been addressed.

Microsoft Senior Vice President, Bill Veghte

"With over a billion customers, there are lots of niches to balance as you simplify as well," Veghte added. "So we've moved to what I call a Russian doll model. Every [product edition] increments, and doesn't take away features or capabilities from the other editions. They are true supersets of each other, and additive.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: mikeyes
This is the dumbest thing ever. There should be 3 versions. Home, Professional and Ultimate.

Go and read the article because that is essentially what Microsoft did.

1. Starter: Available only in emerging markets like Brazil or on low end netbooks in the Western world.

2. Home Basic: Only available in emerging markets. Not Available in the Western world.

3. Home Premium and Professional: Available in all markets in both retail and OEM plus all the advertising resources are targeted at these two editions since Microsoft expects these to cover over 80% of the market.

4. Enterprise: Only available through Enterprise channels and only of concern to IT folks.

5. Ultimate: The retail and OEM version of Enterprise for the consumer market targeted at less than 1% of the total install base. Basically a niche product that very few will need or even hear of. Microsoft plans to not even bother marketing this edition.

Now eliminate all the versions that are not available to the majority of PC users or are not going to be actively marketed to consumers and that just leaves two editions.

Home Premium

Professional

 

[Gooberlx2]

So is Ultimate basically a single license consumer version of Enterprise. Great, I don't need the bitlocker and virtualization stuff, but I do want RDP, Complete PC backup and Media Center all on one PC this time. Looks like Pro version for me.

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
OP, you need to go back and read Paul's article again because Microsoft specifically told him that only two versions are going to advertised to consumers. Those versions are Home Premium and Professional. Starter is only going to be sold on netbooks in the US and will not be available to retail buyers and Home basic is only available in emerging markets. Enterprise is only available in the Enterprise channels and Ultimate is basically Enterprise for retail consumers, but will not be advertised and is a niche product aimed at less than 1% of consumers.

To sum this post up there are only 2 consumer editions that will be available in the retail that will be marketed and one that will not be marketed.

Another thing to remember that is a change verses Vista versions. Each more expensive version is a superset of the previous version. Professional will have all the feature of HP, unlike Vista where Business is missing the multimedia features that are in HP. That means you will not have to buy Ultimate to get those features and some of the more advance capabilities of the business version at the same time.

Windows got cheaper just by Microsoft adding multimedia capabilities to Professional, so people that use their pc's for both work and play don't have to buy Ultimate now.

I'll admit I didn't read it to carefully. If professional has all the features of Home Premium then it's a little better then the Vista Editions. Although it seems like to many versions still, I think everyone wants the Ultimate Edition.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2
So is Ultimate basically a single license consumer version of Enterprise. Great, I don't need the bitlocker and virtualization stuff, but I do want RDP, Complete PC backup and Media Center all on one PC this time. Looks like Pro version for me.

That is correct. This is the version Ultimate Vista user will most likely want when moving to Windows 7.

 

[Bateluer]

They are repeating one of their major mistakes with Windows Vista, too many editions. They should stick to just 2, Home and Professional. Maybe an OEM/Starter edition.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
They are repeating one of their major mistakes with Windows Vista, too many editions. They should stick to just 2, Home and Professional. Maybe an OEM/Starter edition.

Are you having a failure to read?

The article basically said there will be two available consumer versions: Home Premium and Professional. Sure, there will be Ultimate, but practically no marketing will go into it and they expect an extremely small install base for it.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons


It's worse then Vista I think, why do they need home premium and professional?

I hope I get a free copy of ultimate.

How so? Consumers will go to Best Buy or Dell and choose between Home Premium and Professional. that's it. With Vista they had to contend with Home Basic, Premium, Business and Ultimate. Even the retail boxes are only going to be those two flavors. You are going to have to actively look for other versions through the OEM channels if you want them and if you're savvy enough to do that, you're not going to be confused by the different versions.

Professional looks to be what Vista Ultimate was. The new Ultimate is basically the Enterprise edition with a single user license. It's not going to be generally available to consumers.

It doesn't look much worse than the XP SKUs.

They had K, KN, N, Starter, Home, Professional, Enterprise, Media Center Edition (two flavors) x64 all in various OEM and Retail Varieties as well. Your average consumer chose between Home, Pro and Media Center Editions. Now they just choose between Home Premium and Professional.

It's easy to nitpick all the SKUs and licensing schemes that MS uses, but when it comes down to making it easier on the non-techy consumer, it appears this is going to be pretty easy.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: fyleow
How is that worse than Vista? They simplified it by removing Home Basic. Regular consumers will never see Starter edition around because it's emerging markets only. They will never see Enterprise either. That leaves just Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate with the majority of users getting the Home Premium edition.

It's going to be hard choosing between Home Premium and Professional for many users that want some of the features in Home Premium and some features in Professional. That leaves only Ultimate or Enterprise which are going to be expensive.

No, that was the case for Vista but Win 7 isn't the same. Under Vista if you wanted Media Center and Domain support, previous versions, etc, you had to buy Ultimate. Under Win7, all the Business features will be in Pro along with the Home Premium features. In Essence, Win7 Pro is going to be what Vista Ultimate is today. Win7 Ultimate is just going to be the Enterprise editions without volume licensing.

 

[aka1nas]

The bigger deal is that all Windows 7 SKUs (excepting the thirld-world editions) will finally have an MPEG2 codec in-box.

 

[RebateMonger]

The price difference between Home Basic and Home Premium was so little that it wasn't worthwhile complicating the purchase decision and product support.

The addition of Media Center to "Professional" is great. That's been needed since XP MCE came out. Business people need to watch DVDs too.

Making each higher version a simple "upgrade" of the lower version should mean that when we need to upgrade PCs in an office from "Home" to "Professional", we can do it without a complete re-install of the OS. With Vista, this required a total re-install (going from Vista Home Premium to Vista Business).

It's a step forward.

Edit:
Upon reading Thurrott's article, I realize that Microsoft's plan really does fix a lot of things that make life hard for those who do IT support. Easy upgrades, an "Anytime Upgrade" that's totally online and (hopefully) works, and the easy-to-understand feature sets are going to save businesses and consumers a lot of time and money over the next five years.

Score two points for Microsoft for their Windows 7 plans and for Windows Home Server. Now if Microsoft can just let us slipstream Service Packs, make automated backups across a network, and access a USB or eSATA drive in a Hyper-V child OS and I'll be ecstatic.

 

[BD2003]

Definitely improved over the vista situation. I just hope it's not too pricey, and that the upgrade version still allows you to clean install.

 

[Aberforth]

I hope the market prices go up, I'm never gonna buy MS stocks again.

 

[blurredvision]

If everyone would read the entire article linked in the OP, then read soonerproud's posts, you'd understand how W7 will basically look like XP to consumers. I also like that each successive version is a superset of the previous.