Windows 7 Pre-Sales Remain Strong

[raj11650]

It won't be available for another four months, but consumers are already rushing to place their orders for Microsoft 's highly anticipated Windows 7 operating system and take advantage of early-bird discounts.

Amazon and other retailers have been taking pre-orders for Windows 7 since June 25th. For the third week in a row, the OS is Amazon's top seller in the software category, according to the Web merchant's Best Sellers list.

As of Tuesday, the list showed Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade as the top seller in software, followed by Windows 7 Professional Upgrade. Microsoft Office 2007 was ranked third, completing a win-place-show trifecta for Redmond.

In keeping with a Microsoft promotional campaign, retailers—including Amazon and Best Buy—are offering Windows 7 at discounts of more than 50% until July 11.
Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade, for instance, is selling on Amazon for $49, or more than half off its suggested retail price of $119. Windows 7 Professional is going for $99, down from $199. That's good news for Microsoft, which saw Windows sales fall 16% in the most recent quarter.

Microsoft said it would defer recognition of 50% of revenue for sales made through the program until the fulfillment date of the purchases or until the program expires, based on whichever comes earliest. Microsoft said it expects to defer $200 to $300 million in such revenues during its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended June 30th.

Microsoft has also disclosed an upgrade program through which consumers who purchase a Vista-powered PC can migrate to Windows 7 at little or no cost when the latter becomes available on Oct. 22.

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[Night Hawk]

I won't have to read more! I already knew 7 will fly off shelves once out on 10/22! Once the beta was first on for a bit it didn't take long to come to that conclusion with XP and Vista being on as well for a large comparison.

Vista sold fast in 2007 at first due to the long gap between that and XP where people went for the new look. This time around 7 took the lead with more then a newer look but some serious improvements.

Of course with a tight economy or someone simply on a tight budget the promotional discounts will draw a larger percentage right off! 7 Home Premium for $50 while Vista Basic was $99- back in 2007. Which would you go for? Obviously the better edition of an improved version!

 

[holo88]

someone loan me $50, so i can increase MS's revenue

full price is a plan 'b', but i think im stuck with it. no funds till AFTER the 11th (when the 50% deal ends). i hate murphey's law (<-note the rage in the smilies face)

 

[D1ABL0]

Windows 7 premium 50 bucks is a great deal
MS did the right thing
and it seems accounting did use calculators this time with this release

 

[Night Hawk]

someone loan me $50, so i can increase MS's revenue

full price is a plan 'b', but i think im stuck with it. no funds till AFTER the 11th (when the 50% deal ends). i hate murphey's law (<-note the rage in the smilies face)

If placed with a charge card or prepaid card nothing is charged until 7 is out when your card then sees the charge for 7 placed on it for payment. The preorder simply reserves a copy as well as applying the promotional discount so you don't pay the full price in October!

 

[holo88]

If placed with a charge card or prepaid card nothing is charged until 7 is out when your card then sees the charge for 7 placed on it for payment. The preorder simply reserves a copy as well as applying the promotional discount so you don't pay the full price in October!

hmm, theres -$75 on mine as of now. whats the worst they can do? say no?
:roflmao:

guess i just assumed they'd do a 'dummy charge' or something.
(when they charge like 40 cents to verify an active account)

 

[Night Hawk]

Well that's precisely what the MS store page saw there. Individual vendors, retail outlets may have their own small fees to tack on at the present moment.

"Important Pre-Order Details

Make sure your PC is compatible with Windows 7. Download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

Windows 7 will be available starting on Oct. 22, 2009.

Your card will not be charged until your order is shipped or the product is made available for download.(hmmm...)

Promotional pricing is available on Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional upgrade versions only. This promotional pricing is a limited time offer, while supplies last, and is limited to three (3) copies per edition per customer.

See the Pre-Orders section for additional details."
Windows 7 - Buy and download from Microsoft Store

 

[srq2625]

someone loan me $50, so i can increase MS's revenue

full price is a plan 'b', but i think im stuck with it. no funds till AFTER the 11th (when the 50% deal ends). i hate murphey's law (<-note the rage in the smilies face)

Just a thought - put it on a credit card. A reputable dealer (and I think all those involved with the pre-order campaign are such) won't charge your card until the product ships.

EDIT: Someone beat me to the punch on this. Oh well, great minds think alike.

hmm, theres -$75 on mine as of now. whats the worst they can do? say no?
:roflmao:

guess i just assumed they'd do a 'dummy charge' or something.
(when they charge like 40 cents to verify an active account)

You're thinking about what is called a "Pre-Auth" - it's a place holder against the expected charge. Gas stations do this - when you slide your card into the pump/register, the station calls it's card processing network and the network then connects to your bank and says, "Oh, by the way, I need you to hold out $XX for an upcoming, expected charge." The XX varies, but it's how the gas stations know they they will get paid for the gas. When you finish pumping, the gas station again calls their CC network and says, "Oh, you remember that pre-auth on this card? Well the charge is $YY." The network then cancels the pre-auth and posts the real charge transaction to your account. (You learn a lot when you write embedded system software for a point of sale (POS) device).

Anyway, the pre-auth should not appear on your account until just before the product (Win7) ships. It might not appear at all. I doubt there will be any activity on your account until the middle of Oct - I know there's been none on mine with respect to my pre-order.

 

[DrWho]

Night Hawk,
I'm sitting here laughing.........really!
I downloaded that "Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser" and it crashed when I ran it.

However, this PC was specifically built to test Vista, several years ago and today I'm running the Win-7 RC1 version on it. (I'm currently on my XP-Pro HD)

With both Vista Ultimate 64 and Win-7 64 I've seen no incompatibilities, with my hardware.

I just thought it was funny.:sarc:



EDIT:
I logged in to Win-7 RC1 and ran the Compatibility checker again.
It installed and ran and reported that my Video card doesn't support Areo.
I'm running Win-7 now and everything is working fine. I doubt I really need to change Video Cards.

 

[mlevy]

On the payment issue. I contacted Newegg and specifically asked about this. I was told that I would NOT be billed until the item is in stock or ships...

 

[srq2625]

On the payment issue. I contacted Newegg and specifically asked about this. I was told that I would NOT be billed until the item is in stock or ships...

:huh: "OR"?

It's usually SOP for the billing to happen as part of the order fulfillment process - about a day before UPS gets the package.

 

[DJG]

Night Hawk,
I'm sitting here laughing.........really!
I downloaded that "Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser" and it crashed when I ran it.

Advisor doesn't like 64-bits ... go figure.

 

[wwoods]

Advisor doesn't like 64-bits ... go figure.

Runs just fine here on my Ultimate64 system as well as my wifes Ultimate64 system....so yea it works on 64 bit.

 

[Night Hawk]

Night Hawk,
I'm sitting here laughing.........really!
I downloaded that "Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser" and it crashed when I ran it.

However, this PC was specifically built to test Vista, several years ago and today I'm running the Win-7 RC1 version on it. (I'm currently on my XP-Pro HD)

With both Vista Ultimate 64 and Win-7 64 I've seen no incompatibilities, with my hardware.

I just thought it was funny.:sarc:



EDIT:
I logged in to Win-7 RC1 and ran the Compatibility checker again.
It installed and ran and reported that my Video card doesn't support Areo.
I'm running Win-7 now and everything is working fine. I doubt I really need to change Video Cards.

The only compatibility tool used here recently was for the new Virtual PC beta ironically after that and the XP mode was already on! At one point I had 32bit device drivers working for the old tuner card here before the company released an update that supports the 64bit Vista.

Compatibility issues here? naaaa.... I simply have one program that will need to be replaced out of a long list of them!

 

[seekermeister]

The problem for me is that the offer is only for the upgrade version, not the full retail. I assume that Vista is required for the upgrade version to work, but I do not have, nor will have Vista. Besides, upgrade versions aren't usually as good as the full versions. I don't guess that the upgrade would work with WS2K8...would it? Otherwise, I guess I will just have to wait and pay more.

 

[fakeasdf]

do you have XP, from what I've read the licensing will work out when upgrading from XP. The actual upgrade won't, but the cheaper Windows 7 will...

 

[seekermeister]

do you have XP, from what I've read the licensing will work out when upgrading from XP. The actual upgrade won't, but the cheaper Windows 7 will...

Yes, I have XP x64, but I don't understand...are you saying that the upgrade license will work to install the full version also?

 

[fakeasdf]

I'm saying you can buy an upgrade version at the reduced price and install it. Your xp x64 will serve as the OS from which you are upgrading from.

 

[seekermeister]

Okay, I see what you are saying now. The other question is about an upgrade vs a full version. In the past, some people have said that an upgrade was more troublesome than the full version. I don't imagine that anyone really knows about this in relation to W7 yet, but have you heard any speculation about this?

 

[Jacen]

To my understanding, the upgrade is the full version. The only difference between the "upgrade" and retail is that the "upgrade" makes sure you have some sort of Windows product installed.

Since you have XP installed you will have to do a clean install which in my opinion is the best way to go. The upgrade issues you are referring to are when essentially the new version is layed over the existing one. This is where the issues arise.

A clean install basically puts a fresh system on your computer.

For example, when I bought my laptop I was eligible for the Vista upgrade since my laptop came with XP and Vista was near release. I got my upgrade disk and now I can do clean installs on any computer our there provided the computer has a license for Vista. This disk has been invaluable as I hate all the junk that comes on my Dell computers. I also used it on my wifes Toshiba to clear all the extra crap they put on it.

My hope is that this Windows 7 upgrade will be the same. This way if I purchase another computer I can immediatly wipe off all the prepackaged crap that computer manufactures like to install. I was able to gain an extra 10GB of space.

Anyone feel free to correct me if I am wrong.