Microsoft Windows 7 Professional — $30 for Students

A few weeks ago we showed you that you could pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for $30 if you were a university student. That deal is still available, but there is perhaps even a better one.

Over the Microsoft Ultimate Steal website that brings students a great discount on Microsoft Office 2007, you can get Windows 7 Professional – which includes all of the Home Premium features, and then some – for the same great price of $30. Just look toward the bottom of the page for the blue box.Windows 7 Professional is targeted toward businesses and offers additional features (over Home Premium) such as remote desktop management, location aware printing, Encrypting File System, Presentation mode, as well as a few others. The most compelling addition though is Windows XP Mode which will virtualize a Windows XP environment (as long as your hardware is capable of virtualization) to ensure compatibility with XP applications.

I see no reason not to go the Windows 7 Professional route over Home Premium if they are the same price, so have at it! But be warned, some people have had issues with the Home Premium student discount (Microsoft is working on it this). No word yet if the same issues still apply to the Professional student discount, but we have some articles that may help.