Businesses offered 90-day free trial of Windows 7

Businesses can download and try the Enterprise edition of Windows 7 for 90 days without cost. However, restrictions on the deal mean it may only be suitable for a limited audience.

The trial, which is available until March 31 next year, is for the full Enterprise edition. It does require activation, but won’t need a product key as this is embedded in the download. Users will need to register a Windows Live account to get the download.

The main drawback to the trial is that it really isn’t suitable for using on an active machine. Once the 90 day trial period is over, the system will automatically shut down once an hour. While that may sound like pretty decent performance to some Vista users, it’s such a deterrent that Microsoft really should have just set the system to shut down permanently.

If and when people using the trial decide to buy the system, they’ll get a new copy and will have to do a fresh install.

These restrictions severely limit how many people will benefit from the trial. Larger businesses will already have had the opportunity to trial the software through a variety of Microsoft programs, including volume licensing and software assurance. Small businesses will likely not have a spare machine for running the trial edition and probably won’t have the staff time to faff about with trying it out and then re-installing it, particularly given that Enterprise isn’t available through retail outlets.

Those firms which are big enough to benefit from Enterprise and have the facilities to try it out, but aren’t big enough to already get volume licensing seem the main audience for the trial.

Microsoft also says that only a limited number of people will be able to take part in the free trial. As usual with such a set-up where there’s no technical reason for a limitation, that restriction seems in place solely so that the firm can declare the limit reached and thus bill it as having overwhelming demand.

• 

• Small businesses face Windows 7 upgrade limit while Japan ‘sells out’ half-price deal
• Dell warns businesses of Windows Vista woes
• ‘Windows Vista capable’ lawsuit gets trial date
• Most businesses still downgrading Vista to XP
• Small businesses flocking to Vista