Windows 7 now available to pre-order from Amazon

Just received an email from Amazon announcing that they're taking pre-orders for Microsoft Windows 7 which is due to be released on 22nd October 2009.

Microsoft have come under fire for not providing a cheap upgrade path from Windows XP which loads of people (myself included) are still running. They've been pushing the pre-order route with special offer prices to try to improve take-up and the Amazon launch is no exception.

Windows 7 Home Premium E is available for a pre-launch price of £74.97 (compared to the normal Amazon 'full' price of £149.99).

Similarly Windows 7 Professional E has a pre-launch price of £179.97 (instead of a full price of £219.99).

Windows 7 has generally been getting good product reviews (e.g. see PC Pro's complete feature guide to Windows 7) and unlike Vista Microsoft have learnt their lesson about hardware requirements and so Windows 7 will run quite happily on older machines (although 1GHz and 1Gb memory is still recommended).

Personally I'm not a great fan of Microsoft but at these prices I do have to admit to being slightly interested. Like it or not Windows 7 is going to be around for quite a few years to come and so if you're thinking of keeping your current PC then it could be worth upgrading.

It's worth noting that these are the "E" (European) versions of Windows 7 so don't come with Internet Explorer built in because of European competition rules. You can of course download a copy of IE8 (see my earlier impressions of testing IE8) or my personal favourite Mozilla's Firefox (which was recently upgraded to Firefox 3.5).

PS: Just noticed that these Amazon prices are about £10 cheaper than pre-ordering Windows 7 from the Microsoft online store!

PPS: Amazon say that this is a limited pre-launch offer and is only available whilst stocks last and ends at midnight on 9th August.