Microsoft announces expensive Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade prices

Posted on 1 Aug 2009 at 23:56

Microsoft has announced the details of its Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade (WAU) option.

WAU will allow users to upgrade their edition of Windows 7 efficiently by simply entering a new licence key that unlocks extra features in the operating system. This allows an upgrade to be performed without having to reinstall the OS.

For example, a netbook owner could use the system to upgrade from Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium.

All WAU editions are priced significantly lower than the recommend retail prices of the standalone versions. So, upgrading from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional will cost £120, while buying Professional by itself will cost £250 (£180 currently for pre-orders).

While this is relatively good value compared to buying a completely new version of Windows 7, the UK pricing is significantly more expensive than in the US.

In some cases it's almost twice the price, with an upgrade from Starter to Professional costing $115 (around £69) in the US, but a whopping £119 in the UK.

It's impossible to blame this price discrepancy on anything other than Microsoft ripping-off UK customers. This is particularly true as the upgrade price from Professional to Ultimate is very close in both the UK and US, so why the large gap for all other upgrades?

WAU upgrades will be available direct from Microsoft's website and from all major retailers. The full prices and upgrade options can be seen in the table below:

Anytime Upgrade version	Price	US Price in £
Starter to Home Premium	£70	£48
Starter to Professional	£120	£69
Starter to Ultimate	£140	£99
Home Premium to Professional	£120	£54
Home Premium to Ultimate	£125	£84
Professional to Ultimate	£85	£78