The first details related to the Windows 7 Upgrade Program were leaked ahead of Christmas 2008, indicating that, as early as the past year, Microsoft was cooking a remake of the Windows Vista Express Upgrade Program. In what can only be described as the Redmond company synchronizing its Windows strategy with its OEM partners selling Windows-based computers, the software giant issued a draft of the Windows 7 Upgrade Program, an initiative aimed to fuel sales of Vista-PCs ahead of the availability of Windows 7, by offering consumers incentives involving low-cost or even free upgrades to the next iteration of the Windows client.

The Windows 7 Upgrade Program, which has yet to receive an official label, would debut come July 1, 2009, Microsoft revealed via the draft offered to original equipment manufacturers, according to TechARP. However, the information shared by the company with its OEM partners does not reveal an end-date for the discontinuation of the program and synonymous with the availability of Windows 7.

Users will be eligible for the Windows 7 Upgrade Program only in the context in which they will purchase an OEM-machine preloaded with Windows Vista during the Program Eligibility Period, which starts July 1, 2009, and will last through TBD (To Be Determined).

Only individual customers and small businesses acquiring Windows Vista-machines after July 1, 2009, will be able to benefit from the program, but not medium, large, and enterprise customers.

Microsoft revealed that Windows Vista Home Premium could be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional, and Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Starter Edition, and Windows XP do not qualify for Win7 upgrades.

There are additional limitations for the program. Essentially, the Redmond giant will only allow Vista-computers to be upgraded to Windows 7, in the context in which both operating systems share the same language. Outside of the localization-specific restrictions, the program's Eligible Upgrade Paths are also set in stone. Users of Vista Home Premium will only be able to upgrade to the Windows 7 Home Premium, and not to the Professional or Ultimate SKUs of the operating system.

At the same time, the original (Vista) and upgrade (Windows 7) platforms will be intimately connected in terms of Qualifying Product Version. This means that the upgrade media will not only have to be the same language-specific version and territory-specific version as the qualifying product, but also support the same platform, namely 32-bit Vista will be upgraded to 32-bit Windows 7, while 64-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 7.