Registry Hack Shows 9 Versions of Windows 8

While Windows 8 Developer Preview showed 3 possible versions of windows, Windows 8 Consumer Preview shows three times of the amount of versions the developer preview had. Following the scheme since the days of Windows XP with a total of three versions (Home, Professional, Media Center), Microsoft is potentially adding more versions of their Windows software with the next release of Windows, Windows 8. Windows8Beta has discovered that there is potentially 9 versions of Windows coming out when Windows 8 gets released for sale. If you point your Registry Editor (Regedit) in Windows 8 to the folder…

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIENE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\PackageIndex\Product

…the registry will display 11 registry (with one being the (Default) head, one being a pre-release of the ARM version of Windows 8, and the nine other versions that are potentially becoming actual versions of Windows 8). The potential list of versions of Windows 8 include…

• Windows 8 ARM edition
• Windows 8 Starter
• Windows 8 Home Basic
• Windows 8 Home Premium
• Windows 8 Professional
• Windows 8 Professional Plus
• Windows 8 Enterprise
• Windows 8 Enterprise Eval
• Windows 8 Ultimate

While this list may change when Windows 8 starts selling in the market and that “Windows 8 Enterprise Eval” is a trial version of Windows 8 for business use, there is still more different versions of Windows 8 than there are of Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate). While we knew that Microsoft will release an ARM version of Windows 8, what surprises us is the version of Windows 8 called “Windows 8 Professional Plus” which leaves us to wonder what features Windows 8 Professional Plus will include (potential of more collaborative work environment between people’s and servers).