Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

By now most, if not all of us, know that Windows 7 will be released on October 22.  Like Vista, it’s being released in far too many SKUs for the average consumer to make sense of, each at varying prices.  While those of us in the US, Canada, and Japan are already able to pre-order whichever version of 7 we want, those in the rest of the world have been unable to as of yet.

Tomorrow, July 15, that changes as Windows 7 goes up for pre-order in the UK.  Like the other pre-orders already available, the UK Windows 7 pre-orders will be offered at a reduced price at first, though it will possibly disappear before the actual release like they did in the US.  Customers in the UK will be able to pre-order Windows 7 for the reduced price of around “£49.99 for Home Premium and £99.99 for Professional,” neither of which are all that cheap given how much Americans had to pay for the pre-orders.  The pre-orders will be available from a number of retailers, including Amazon.co.uk, Argos, Comet, Currys, Dixons, Ebuyer.com, John Lewis Partnership, Littlewoods, Micro Anvika, PC World, Play.com, Staples and Tesco.

It is worth noting that Windows 7 in the UK, and the rest of Europe will be sans Internet Explorer.  This seemingly simple omission means that all European customers, whether upgrading from XP or Vista, or performing a fresh install will need to do a clean install.  So, to keep that straight, the prices are more expensive than the American pre-orders, and require you to wipe your computer clean just because it can’t ship with IE.  That seems a bit unfair, but at least there’s no dealing with IE.  Windows 7 would still be worth the upgrade, but make sure you get the pre-order before Microsoft really gouges you on the price.