A new round of special offerings involving Windows 7 went live today across the United Kingdom, France and Germany. However, customers won't be able to take advantage of the consistent discounts for the Home Premium and Professional editions of Windows 7 directly from Microsoft. This because the Microsoft Store website designed to serve customers in Europe is down due to the high volume of traffic it has been experiencing as a result of the special discounts made available by the software giant for Windows 7.

At the time of this article, this was the message that welcomed users to Microsoft Store EMEA: “Dear Customer, thank you for visiting the Microsoft Store. Due to the eagerly anticipated Windows 7 pre-order offer we’re experiencing a higher level of demand on our website than usual. This means you can’t access the site right now and we’re sorry about that. We’ll be back up and running as soon as we can so please try again soon to get your hands on a copy of Windows 7! We look forward to seeing you again. The Microsoft Store Team.” UPDATE: Microsoft Store EMEA is now back online. UPDATEx2: And it's down again. Looks like demand is through the roof.

The Microsoft Store is down for all of Europe, not just customers in the three countries that have been included in the initial promotion. The overall initiative is an integral part of the discounts announced initially by Microsoft on June 25th, 2009, the same day that the company made public the pricing details for the next iteration of the Windows 7 client. It's now the turn of customers in the UK, France and Germany to pre-order a copy of Windows 7, specifically the Home Premium and Professional SKUs, the E versions. As Microsoft revealed, Windows 7 Home Premium E and Windows 7 Professional E are equivalent to the plain vanilla SKUs available in the rest of the world, only that Internet Explorer 8 has been stripped from the operating system.

Customers in the UK, Germany and France interested in buying the E editions of Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional at a discount should know that: “The offer runs from July 15th 2009 until August 9th 2009, and there are limited quantities. Estimated Retail Price. Retail prices may vary. Before you install an E edition of Windows 7, please visit windows.microsoft.com/install-windows-E for important information. When you install the E edition of Windows 7, you'll need to do a custom (clean) installation. That means you'll need to back up all of your files and settings, install the operating system, then re-install your files, settings, and programs. Important: The E editions of Windows 7 do not contain an Internet browser. Please get a browser from Microsoft or a third party and have it on a CD/DVD or another device so it's ready to install after the Windows 7 installation is complete.”

As was the case for US, Canada and Japan, where the special offerings first went live, supplies are limited. In this regard, customers will need to hurry to get theirs. In the UK, Windows 7 will cost £49.99 for Home Premium and £99.99 for Professional, and even cheaper. In France Windows 7 Édition Familiale Premium (yes, I left the French monikers just for fun) comes with a price tag of 49,99 Euros while Windows 7 Édition Professionnelle is 109,99 Euros. In Germany the Windows 7 Home Premium version will cost 49.99 Euros, but customers here won't have the option of buying Windows 7 Professional with a discount.

Customers in the UK have a few alternatives to Microsoft Store:

Amazon
Currys
Dixons
Micro Anvika
PC World
Play.com
Tesco