Basically, if you’ve bought a PC that came with certain versions of Vista installed, from June 26, 2009 to January 10, 2010, you get an upgrade to Windows 7 for free! According to the Microsoft Press Release:

“There is a lot of excitement for Windows 7 in the marketplace today. However, many consumers need a new Windows PC for school, work or home before October 22,” said Brad Brooks, corporate vice president, Windows consumer marketing at Microsoft. “So starting June 26th, any customer who buys a PC from a participating computer maker or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate will also receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Window 7 at little or no cost.”

In other words, only Vista Home Basic users are exempted from this program. Micro Center has compiled a list of manufacturers included in the program, with relevant links:

Windows 7 OEM Upgrade Info

Acer
Upgrade Info

Averatec
Upgrade Info

Compaq
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Dell
Upgrade Info
Support Info

eMachines
Upgrade Info

Fujitsu
Upgrade Info

Gateway
Upgrade Info

HP
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Lenovo
Upgrade Info
Support Info

Retail Box Upgrade
Upgrade and Support Info

Sony
Upgrade Info

Toshiba
Upgrade Info

Velocity Micro
Upgrade and Support Info

Announced today, the official pricing of Windows 7 is as follows:

Retail

• Home Premium $199.99
• Professional $299.99
• Ultimate $319.99

Upgrade Packages

• Home Premium $119.99
• Professional $199.99
• Ultimate $219.99

Courtesy Wikipedia

In other words, $120, $200, and $220 respectively. Before you get excited about the lower prices (when compared to Vista), remember that only 1% actually buy retail OS copies. The rest download bootleg copies from torrent sites get the OS when they buy a new computer.

Still, it’s great seeing Microsoft slashing their flagship product prices a bit. Maybe we’ll see less people call the company “M$” on online forums.

Some bad news for Windows XP users though: Windows 7 will insist on a clean install, allowing no upgrades. Any Windows 7 upgrade package will work with XP though, checking first if the XP installation is legit before installing itself onto the same partition as XP.

One more thing to keep in mind: upgrading to Windows 7 from a higher edition of Vista will also require a clean install, as in the case of a Vista Ultimate user wanting to install Windows 7 Home Premium.

My first impression of Windows 7? Feels a lot faster, even than my old XP installation (thanks to the negative press/opinions Vista suffered from, I stayed away). Then again, you can argue that everything’s more responsive because new Windows installs usually are.

But the tech-heads from Anandtech have the proof. With Windows 7, Microsoft overhauled how its OS renders multiple windows and interfaces. Seems the guys at Redmond have finally figured out how to transfer that load more to a PC’s graphics card, while minimizing the burden on the CPU and system memory. Read more

Got nothing to do this lazy Sunday? Why not give Windows 7 a try, and turn your PC into a dual-boot machine?

Maybe you decided to give Windows 7 a pass when it first came out, not wanting to replace Vista or XP on your PC. But once Windows 7 release candidate 1 (RC1) becomes officially available to the public this May 5, you might want to take advantage of turning your computer into a dual-boot machine. You get to try out Windows 7 for yourself, without giving up the Windows you use for your daily—and crucial—business. Read more

The title says it all folks. The people over at SlashGear report an Amtek U560 UMPC subjected to Windows 7. This particular U560 ran on a 600Mhz Intel A100 processor, working with only half-a-gig of memory. Yet there were no reports of epic failure, only surprise at W7 granting the U560 an experience index of 1.2 (As a point of comparison, SlashGear reports that “many UMPCs manage a score of 1″). So how does W7 look on the small screen? Read more

So today’s the day when the first beta of Windows 7 is available, and if you want to try out Microsoft’s latest gem, you’d better pay attention to what Wired says. To make a long story short, the beta will be available only today, Windows 7 upgrades will only work with Vista SP1, and you’ll need to register to get a product key. The ISO is estimated to be 2.5 to 3.5GB in size.

But good luck. I’ve tried visiting Wired’s source, a post on the Official Windows Blog, and I’ve also tried visiting the Windows 7 page to get the download link. Wired warned that “demand will be huge.” Seems like that’s true, or Microsoft has dropped the ball on this one.