Windows 8 May End Up with Nine Different Editions
When Windows 8 goes gold and ships to the masses, there may be as many as nine different editions, and that's not including OEM vs Retail boxed copies and/or 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. So much for simplification. It was reported earlier in the week that Windows 8 may be reduced to just three main editions based on information found in a pair of Hewlett-Packard support documents. Now it's looking like there will be three times as many.
Windows8Beta.com gets credit for digging around the Registry in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and uncovering shout outs to a whole bunch of Windows 8 versions, including:
Windows8Beta.com gets credit for digging around the Registry in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and uncovering shout outs to a whole bunch of Windows 8 versions, including:
- Windows 8 Enterprise Edition
- Windows 8 Enterprise Eval Edition
- Windows 8 Home Basic Edition
- Windows 8 Home Premium Edition
- Windows 8 ARM Edition
- Windows 8 Professional Edition
- Windows 8 Professional Plus Edition
- Windows 8 Starter Edition
- Windows 8 Ultimate Edition
Based on previous versions of Windows, the above list appears to be a far more likely scenario than just having three editions to choose from. If Windows 7 is any indication, the Home Premium version will end up being the bang/buck version that most users should install.