Windows 7E becomes 7EU

With the addition of U for U-turn of course, as Microsoft rapidly changed their position last month to allow the European edition of Windows 7 to do an in-place upgrade from Vista instead of requiring a full Rip and Replace approach. To overcome the European ruling on browser inclusion, the installation now incorporates a selection of Browsers from which the user can select and set default - thus no longer forcing IE8 onto every Windows 7 user.

With many partners like myself expressing concerns over the lack up an upgrade path (see previous blog from July ) perhaps they felt some pressure to make the change from their partner community. More likely, though, is that they reviewed the impact on the home user market and the fact that, while many enthusiastic early adopters would happily upgrade if it was automated, having to back everything up and re-install from scratch was a bit beyond them. The road to global domination was somewhat hampered by this simple fact.

From the technical point of view, the Rip and Replace option will still almost certainly give you the best results in terms of maximising the performance of the machine, but at the cost of time, and therefore money, I reckon a number of Small Businesses will take the upgrade option too. (Particularly if thay have recently purchased a machine with "free Windows 7 upgrade" included).