Mary Jo Foley has a brief rundown of the proposed lineup for Windows 7. It’s not all bad news…
And Ed Bott gives a few more details about what the proposed features for the different Win7 versions are. If we do any Win7 here at twc central at all at all (and yes, I plan to install at least Win7 beta 32-bit within a week–and likely the 64-bit version a week after–again, if all goes as planned), I see two, or even three, different versions as being of potential worth:
Windows 7 Home Premium – This is the successor to Windows Vista Home Premium, and Microsoft expects it to be the most common edition sold, the standard for virtually all consumer PCs. It includes the Aero interface with its Windows 7 enhancements, plus Windows Media Center, DVD playback support, and multi-touch and handwriting features. I’m also told (but can’t yet confirm) that image-based backup is included in this edition for the first time.
If I decide not to go with LinuxMCE or something similar on the HTPC I plan on installing this year, this would be worth looking at for that application.
Windows 7 Professional – This edition drops the Business label used in Windows Vista and goes back to the old XP-era name, presumably to give XP users more comfort in their upgrade decision. Unlike Vista Business, this edition contains all features in the Home Premium edition, including Media Center. For the extra cost, you get more traditional business features like the ability to join a Windows domain, group policy based management tools, Remote Desktop host capabilities, network-based backup features, and support for the Encrypting file system.
Group policy management tools. I liked the group policy management console (add-on for workstation users, built-in for server ver.) in Win2K, and even better in Server 2003 and XP (not available for Home ver). I was disappointed that the tool wasn’t included with Vista Premium (although Ultimate users had it included, of course), so that group policy management had to be done with Registry edits. So, group policy console functions included: good. Network based backup features built in? A plus. I’d have to see what pricing is like though, because the additional features mentioned here that I’d want on a twc central computer can all be duped with free add-ons from third parties.
And the “maybe” candidate? Well, Windows 7 “Starter Edition” (supposed to be available as an OEM only, but that’s how I usually buy Windows licenses anyway) might have some usefulness in older equipment, but since the beta that’s available now seems to install on some low-spec hardware, even this might not be needed around here–not that any of these versions are needed, just that some may turn out to be useful.
We’ll see. Maybe this version of Windows will appeal to me more than XP and Vista (2003 Server and Windows Home Server were pretty nice. Haven’t used/been directly exposed to 2008 Server; that’s one of the very few Windows versions I’ve had no exposure to, though what I’ve read/heard about it has been, on balance, very good).