Tomorrow’s our big day – Windows 7 officially launches and hits General Availability (or GA as we have acronyms for everything). That means Windows 7 will be available for purchase worldwide! I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some things to look out for as Windows 7 becomes available in stores and online around the world.

We have big events happening in many countries, including: Japan, UK, Germany, France, China and more. Plus we’re hosting a launch party in New York City tomorrow, which will be hosted by our own CEO Steve Ballmer. Even if you’re not in New York, you can still attend online.

Watch the New York City Windows 7 Launch Party LIVE – Starting 8am Pacific / 11am Eastern!

Customer-hosted Windows 7 Launch Parties will also be taking place starting tomorrow. As you know, Microsoft employee Windows 7 launch parties have been happening already. If you don’t live in a country where Launch Parties are available to host, you can hold a Windows 7 Meetup instead! We are providing people with the resources they need to host a Meetup here on Windows.com.

We will be updating our Virtual Press Room on Microsoft PressPass for Windows 7throughout the day tomorrow. You will be able to find all kinds of goodies including the webcast of our New York launch party, video clips and b-roll footage, photos, fact sheets and other materials, and more. If you’re planning to blog about Windows 7 tomorrow, this will be an excellent resource for you!

I’ve got several important (and pretty exciting) blog posts coming tomorrow that you’ll definitely want to read. So be on the lookout for these. And we have quite a few partners lined up doing guest blog posts for the Windows Partner Blog as well! I’m pretty stoked about what we’ve got lined up in terms of blogging for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is shaping up for one exciting day!

Beginning tomorrow, several very cool new offers will start that customers can take advantage of to get Windows 7:

Screaming Deals: We worked together with our partners to introduce a series of limited-time offers with great deals on hardware, software, upgrades, support, and other options. New offers will be released daily and available for the next 7 days on Windows.com (site goes live tomorrow – stay tuned for link!) as well as through participating retail and OEM partners. These “7 Days of Windows 7” offers are available in the U.S. only (other countries have specific deals as well). Tomorrow is Day 1 and those offers will include:

• Best Buy Bundle: HP Laptop, Desktop PC with monitor, Netbook, wireless router and set-up by Geek Squad for $1,199. For the price of one average Mac, you can outfit your entire family with 3 great Windows 7 PCs and a home network!
• Dell: Save more than $100 on a Dell Studio XPS13
• Gateway: All-in-one Acer Gateway ZX6800 23" for $899

Buy a PC - Get a Discounted Upgrade for another PC: Customers who buy a PC with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate will be able to purchase a discounted copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate to upgrade an existing Windows PC. For people wanting to add a 2nd or 3rd PC in their home (and take advantage of HomeGroup) this is the perfect deal. This offer will run through January 2nd, 2010 and be available in Germany, UK, Czech Republic, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Hungary, U.S., Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Australia.

Windows 7 Family Pack: The Windows 7 Family Pack is also available today while supplies last. Customers can buy 3 licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for one low price – for the U.S. it’s available for $149.99. The Windows 7 Family Pack is available in the U.S., Japan, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Sweden. One of my favorite features in Windows 7 today is HomeGroup. And with the Windows 7 Family Pack, you can truly take advantage of this feature for easy sharing of your music, pictures, video, and document libraries with the Windows 7 PCs in your home, as well as your Xbox 360.

Windows 7 Student Offer: If you are a student (an .edu email address is required), you can upgrade to Windows 7 at the LOWEST PRICE offered, $29.99 in the U.S. This offer runs through January 3rd, 2010 for US, Canada, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico and UK and March 31st, 2010 for Australia.

UPDATE: For more information on the Windows 7 Student Offer, click here.

One more thing… How would you change the world? We have a contest running asking folks to submit an idea they have on how they would use Windows 7 to help their local community. Record a video of yourself explaining your idea and submit it here on the 7 Ways to Change the World website. You have until November 11th to submit your video. The 7 people with the best submissions, as chosen by our judges, will each win a new PC running Windows 7. Each winner's chosen (eligible) community organization will receive a $7,000 grant.

Most consumers will experience Windows 7 one of two ways, either by upgrading their existing PC or by purchasing a PC with Windows 7 preloaded. At work, most of our business customers have their own in-house IT support (or a dedicated partner that they work with) to deploy new versions of Windows.

For the customers that want to upgrade their own PC (and have experience installing Windows), an overview of the process is provided below.

For customers running Windows Vista:

Once Windows 7 is available on October 22nd, customers will be able to upgrade from their current edition of Windows Vista to a corresponding edition of Windows 7. For example, it is fairly straightforward to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium or from a 32-bit version of Windows Vista to a 32-bit version of Windows 7. The process involves inserting the appropriate Windows 7 installation disc, running the setup program, and choosing the “Upgrade” installation option. An Upgrade is the fastest and easiest type of installation and will preserve your files, settings, and programs.

For customers running Windows XP:

Customers who wish to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 will need to follow a different upgrade process due to the changes in PCs since the introduction of Windows XP in 2001. To upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 you must first determine if your PC meets the minimum system requirements using the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Assuming it meets the requirements, you can install Windows 7 using the “Custom” installation option. A custom installation does not preserve your files, settings or programs so you need to first back up your data to an external drive and re-install your programs once installation has completed.

If you are upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 and installing it yourself, we have detailed step-by-step instructions here.

If you are a business customer, please note that there are other migration options for you that include a broad range of deployment tools and guidance to assist your migration to Windows 7. This also includes solutions to assess application and hardware compatibility. Please visit the Springboard Series.

For customers who want to upgrade to Windows 7:

We’ve received a lot of questions from our customers about getting Windows 7 before October 22nd. While you won’t be able to go into a store and purchase a copy until then, you can take advantage of our pre-order option which is available now via the Microsoft Online Store as well as a variety of participating retailers.  If you’re an eligible college student, you can also take advantage of a sweet deal on Windows 7 for $29.99 by visiting http://www.win741.com/. And, if you have multiple PC’s at home, then on October 22nd for a limited time, you’ll be able to get the Windows 7 Family Pack Offer, which will provide 3 Upgrade Licenses for $149.99.  Look for more details on this soon.

For more information on moving to Windows 7, I suggest you read our Windows 7 Upgrade FAQ which answers many of the commonly asked questions regarding moving to Windows 7.

I want to provide a couple of updates for my friends in Europe today in regards to Windows 7.

I want to start off with an update to our plans for the Windows 7 Family Pack. As I mentioned last month, starting with the launch of Windows 7 on October 22nd, customers will be able to buy a Family Pack in the US & Canada. This allows users to install Windows 7 Home Premium on up to 3 existing Windows PCs for a reduced price. It’s an easy and cost effective way to get customers entire household on Windows 7.

I can now tell you of several more countries that will have a chance to take advantage of this great deal: the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden. This will also be a limited offer, but is just one more way that our customers can save on Windows 7.

So what changed to make this possible? Basically, the fact that we are now able to have an upgrade version of Windows 7 available at launch.

On July 24th, 2009 – we announced a new proposal to the European Commission address competition concerns regarding the Windows OS and Internet Explorer web browser.

Under this new proposal, customers in Europe who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a “ballot screen.” Through this ballot screen, people can easily download and install the browser of their choice from the web.

As the result of our new proposal, as announced on July 31, we will no longer offer E versions of Windows 7 in retail, OEM or other channels. European Economic Community countries will have the same version of Windows 7 as the rest of the world.

As well as allowing for a Family Pack offer, it means that we are now able to have an upgrade version of Windows 7 available in Europe at launch. Windows 7 retail boxes will be available in both Full and Upgrade versions via pre-orders through Microsoft online stores where available and our retail partners starting September 1st and at General Availability on October 22. We will, however, continue to make Windows 7 N versions available that does not include Windows Media Player.

For customers who have already pre-ordered the full version of Windows 7 E in the EU – either as part of special pre-order offers or otherwise – they will receive full versions of Windows 7 that include Internet Explorer 8. These customers, and any other customer who pre-orders Windows 7 before upgrade versions are available on September 1, will still be able to get upgrade pricing for Windows 7 full versions.

Customers can also wait for September 1^st, 2009 when they will have a choice of an upgrade or full version of Windows 7 at separate pricing. So essentially if you’re in Europe, you will have the product and pricing options available on a worldwide basis as of September 1st through the Microsoft Store and our retail partners.

I hope to continue to keep people updated on our ballot screen proposal as we have more to share.

Most people buy a PC preinstalled with the edition of Windows that meets their unique needs. However, for some customers their needs may change over time.

With Windows Anytime Upgrade (or WAU), we make it super easy and convenient for the small number of customers who’s PC needs evolve to need a higher edition of Windows 7.

There are a couple of specific situations where we think WAU will prove useful:

Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium: $79.99

A customer may purchase a netbook thinking they would use primarily it for email. Over time, they find they are using that netbook as their primary every-day PC. That person decides they want their netbook to do more. If the netbook is running Windows 7 Starter (or Windows 7 Home Basic in select markets), WAU makes it super easy to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. Moving to Windows 7 Home Premium will allow that customer to take advantage of features such as Aero Peek and other enhanced functionality in the Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 such as Taskbar Previews. Desktop themes are also enabled and so is Remote Media Streaming.

Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional: $89.99
Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate: $139.99*

* You’ll note that we’ve reduced the price of moving from Home Premium to Ultimate 12% in the US as compared to Vista pricing

Another case where WAU may come in handy is when a person wants the ability to connect to a business network (a “domain”). Using WAU to move up to Windows 7 Professional enables the customer to take advantage of the ability to join a domain and use Windows XP Mode to run older programs. When using WAU to move to Windows 7 Ultimate, you’ll get everything from the other editions plus BitLocker to keep your USB devices encrypted and secure and the ability to run your PC in any of 35 different languages (via Language Packs).

After Windows 7 is released to market on October 22nd, you will be able to buy a retail package that contains an upgrade key at a store near you for any of the 3 paths I highlighted above.

If you live in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK or the US (13 countries) – you will be able to purchase the upgrade from Microsoft online directly within Windows 7.

Whether you buy a WAU retail package from a store or online directly within Windows 7, the upgrade takes as few as ten minutes. This is because it only requires an upgrade key (no media). Your current programs, files, and settings will remain intact.

For a rundown of the Windows Anytime Upgrade experience, click here.

Now let’s talk about the Windows 7 Family Pack. Last week I confirmed we were doing a family pack for Windows 7 consisting of Windows 7 Home Premium for installation on up to 3 PCs.

Today, most homes have more than one PC in them. When you run Windows 7 on more than one PC on a home network, you can do more with features like HomeGroup. HomeGroup allows people to connect to PCs on their network and share files, music and photos with the whole family – easily. The Windows 7 Family Pack is an easy and affordable way to get all your PCs in your household running Windows 7 through licensing to install Windows 7 Home Premium on up to 3 PCs.

The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available starting on October 22nd until supplies last here in the US and other select markets. In the US, the price for the Windows 7 Family Pack will be $149.99 for 3 Windows 7 Home Premium licenses. That’s a savings of more than $200 for three licenses. This is a great value and we’re excited to be able to offer it to customers.