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[Neon]

With six separate versions of Windows Vista on the way, Microsoft has a marketing challenge on its hands. How will the company properly inform users as to which versions support which features? One part of the plan is now becoming clear: all four "consumer" versions of the OS will be available to users even after installation. How? They'll all be available for "instant online upgrade" once Windows Vista is installed.

Meet Windows Anytime Upgrade. Matt reported on WAU earlier today on M-Dollar, but I wanted to bring this to the front page because I think the news is bigger than it looks at first glance. The approach is simple: Microsoft is going to pack all four operating systems versions into a single disc package. Once installed, a quick trip to the Control Panel is all you'll need to upgrade from Home Basic all the way to Ultimate, should your heart desire. That, and a credit card.

The puzzle pieces needed to make this happen are actually rather simple to put together. All four versions of the OS are based off of the same core OS, with the Ultimate edition sporting all features. As such, putting all four versions on a single disc is no great feat. You could start with the Ultimate edition and pare down to any other version, for instance. (I'm not saying that this is how it works, but it demonstrates how this is possible.) In this way, the media itself is divorced from the installation. In theory, any user with a valid key could use a consumer Vista disc to install any of the four various versions. And any user could upgrade from Home Basic to Ultimate using that same disc, provided they pay whatever upgrade fee Microsoft requires.

Here's a subtle part of Microsoft's ploy: as the company focuses on the digital entertainment sphere over the next several years, it is going to be unveiling products and services that interact with the features of some of these OS versions but not others. Let's take an example from a shipping product. Windows Vista Home Premium will allow you to stream movies and videos to the Xbox 360. Maybe you don't have an Xbox 360, so you choose Home Basic for now. What Microsoft has put into place is an easy for you to move to the Premium or Ultimate version of the OS for any reason, whether it's to get Media Center's spotlight, new Xbox interactivity features, or some other as-of-yet unannounced product or service. You may not have an Xbox 360 right now. You may not have any desire for Media Center functionality. It's no matter. If and when you do, the OS can be upgraded on the fly. And this saves more than just a trip to the store; Anytime Upgrade will upgrade computers in place, component by component. Gone will be the worries of installing one OS on top of another, or upgrading to a OS that isn't a patched as the OS on the target computer. With Anytime Upgrade, Microsoft is keeping one core version of the OS up to date. All it needs to do is turn features off and on.