Windows 8 Consumer Preview registry entry reveals 9 Editions

Windows 8 Consumer Preview received an overwhelming response when it released, a few days back, clocking in over 1 million downloads within the first 24 hours. There’s no doubt that everyone and anyone who’s into technology is excited to at least try out the latest Operating System from Microsoft and we now learn through Windows8beta, that there will be not three, but a total of nine possible editions of Windows 8. They came across this little piece of information, while digging through the registry files in Windows 8. The entry shows the following SKUs or editions that will eventually make it to devices:

Take your pick

• 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

If we compare this to the different Windows 7 editions, then the new ones that stand out are the Enterpise Eval edition, ARM edition and Professional Plus edition. The Enterprise Eval edition sounds like an ‘Eval’uation version of Windows, but we aren’t too sure as to what features will be present or not, for that matter. The ARM edition is pretty straightforward and will be shipped mostly directly to OEMs. We hardly think they would sell this edition in retail, since ARM devices that are designed to run Win 8, will come bundled with it and it’s a bit unlikely that existing ARM devices will be upgradeable to Win 8. Or could they? The last one is a Professional Plus edition, which is quite interesting, we wonder what the ‘Plus’ will bring to the table. We’ll keep you posted on anything we come across when we play with Windows 8 a bit more.