The Cibertek Blog

If you haven’t heard, last  Wednesday Microsoft announced that Windows 7 was “Released to Manufacturing” (RTM).  This means that the final version or build has been set and the master copy was sent to the factory to be packaged and released to the public.  Finally!

Release Date and Pricing

The official release date is still October 22nd for Joe Consumer and Betty BestBuy.  If you’re lucky enough to be a Technet subscribers, MSDN Developers, or VL customer, you can get it as early as August 6th thru downloads.  For the brave Beta testers, hopefully you took advantage of the 50% discount offer and you will get your shipment on October 22nd live everyone else.  If you didn’t, then you’re SOL; the upgrade will start at $119 for the Home Premium version.  You can still pre-order and get it October 22nd as well.

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). Source: http://www.microsoftstore.com/s/windows7?WT.mc_id=pointitsem_win7_buy_bing&WT.srch=1

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. Source: http://www.microsoftstore.com/s/windows7?WT.mc_id=pointitsem_win7_buy_bing&WT.srch=1

Read Paul Thurrott article about Windows 7 Pricing to answer all your details.

About Family Pack

The announcement last week via blog post had a very interesting tidbit.  It looks like Microsoft is finally starting to listen to their customers and will offer a “Family Pack” for the Home Premium version for $136.95.  Earlier in July, Microsoft had said it wouldn’t offer such a pack but apparently they’ve changed their minds.  However, there isn’t much else said about it other than what was mentioned in the blog post and it isn’t available on the Microsoft Store website.  Hopefully this is for real because its about time.