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Last month, thousands of consumers flocked to place a pre-order for Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, with the software giant touting limited-time-only prices of £49.99 and £99.99 for Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional, respectively.

Not a bad deal, considering October 22nd launch-day prices are destined to rise respectively to £79.99 and £189.99. But what if you missed out on that special promotion? Well, it looks as though an unforeseen loophole could provide another means to a cheap upgrade to Microsoft's latest.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it would ditch the browser-less Windows 7 E editions, instead opting to ship the same version of Windows 7 in Europe that will ship in the rest of the world. The only change, of course, is that the soon-to-be familiar browser ballot would feature as the first page shown by Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

What does any of this have to do with a bargain? Well, our understanding is that Microsoft will honour all pre-orders of the Windows 7 E editions with a full retail copy of Windows 7. So, if you've already pre-ordered Windows 7 Home Premium E, for example, you may just have paid around £49.99 for a full copy of Windows 7 Home Premium - with Internet Explorer built in as standard, worth £149.99.

The good news is, those pre-orders are still available - albeit not quite at such lucrative levels. Today, Windows 7 Home Premium E - despite being effectively dropped - can be pre-ordered from the likes of SCAN.co.uk or Amazon.co.uk at a cost of £69.75. With Microsoft stating that it'll no longer be shipping Windows 7 E editions at all, your pre-order should be fulfilled with a full retail copy of the software. That's a saving of over £80.

October 22nd is drawing near, but Microsoft and its partners don't appear to be in a hurry to update product listings. Once the short-lived E editions disappear, we expect Microsoft to offer Windows 7 in both upgrade (applicable to users who own a prior Windows operating system) and full versions, with pricing as follows:

If you don't own a prior Windows operating system and find yourself unable to make use of the upgrade prices, now might be the opportune time to bag yourself a pre-order - it's essentially the full copy of Windows 7 that'll be shipping to the rest of the world.

Of course, if the European Commission rejects Microsoft's ballot screen proposal... well, that's a whole other arse ache, and could result in the reintroduction of a Windows 7 E version in Europe.

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