I just preordered Microsoft Windows 7 Home on Amazon, because right now it’s over 50% off. For just $49.99 (58% savings) you will get it delivered to your door on the official release date of October 22, 2009 (if you’re a PRIME member, which I am).

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade

As fas as I can tell, the only difference between Home Premium and Professional is that you don’t get their virtualization for XP software support (which is probably like VMWare Fusion on the Mac), no automatic backup features, and it’s missing some enterprise Active Directory thing called “Domain Join” that I doubt I’d ever use. So I’m not paying any $ for that.

One advantage I’ll get out of this is the ability to (a) run DX10 for the latest games, and (b) 64bit support, so finally I can run all 4 GB of RAM properly without PAE and any other proprietary crap. Right now my 4GB only shows up as about 3.4 anyway. Also, SSD support is much better in Windows 7, from what I’ve read. So my Intel X25-M will continue to serve me well!

Update: If you missed this, but you are a student or know a student, you can get a super cheap deal ($10 cheaper!) by visiting the Windows 7 Student Discount Page. It’s $30 for Windows 7 Pro, and another $13 to get a physical DVD.