Windows 7 to be released October 22

The news comes in advance of comments being planned for the Computex conference in Taiwan early tomorrow morning, by Microsoft Corporate Vice President for OEMs Steve Guggenheimer. There he is scheduled to officially deliver the news that Windows 7 general availability worldwide will begin on Thursday, October 22.

Microsoft's spokesperson gave Betanews a heads-up to expect comments from Guggenheimer concerning a program being called Windows Upgrade Option. That's precisely the title of an FAQ that was leaked to the public last month by the technology blog TechARP. That FAQ, which appeared to contain language directly from Microsoft, spoke about a low- or no-cost upgrade option for recent purchasers of consumer SKUs of Windows Vista.

If we'll learn tomorrow what kind of discounts are being offered, it's very likely we'll also hear the final suggested retail pricing for all Windows 7 SKUs.