Microsoft did not disclose pricing for Vista, although Goffe said Vista Business will be priced similar to XP Professional, while Vista Home Basic will have a price tag similar to Windows XP home. Vista Ultimate will be the highest priced of the products.

Pricing has been particularly important when it comes to user adoption of new features. Media Center Edition, for example, was a tiny niche product when it cost more than Windows XP Professional. However, a couple of price drops have made it popular in a broad range of consumer machines.

Because of the European Union mandate, Microsoft will also offer two flavors of Vista that have Windows Media Player removed: "Windows Vista Home Basic N" and "Windows Vista Business N."

All the flavors of Vista will be able to run in either 32-bit or 64-bit mode, with the exception of Starter, which will be 32-bit only.