According to an announcement made by Microsoft Tuesday, the company plans to release six versions of its new Windows 7 operating system. Many people were speculating that the company might adopt a simpler version scheme given the public Vista backlash, but, like Vista before it, Windows 7 will offer a bewildering array of versions.

Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra states in great detail that his company's choices give consumers a broad array of choices, while at the same time acknowledging that there's only one choice they should make anyway.

"We have designed Windows 7 so different editions of Windows 7 can run on a very broad set of hardware, from small-notebook PCs (sometimes referred to as netbooks) to full gaming desktops," stated Ybarra yesterday. "This way, customers can enable the scenarios they want across the broad hardware choices they have."

That basically means that for U.S. consumers the focus will primarily be on Home Premium and Professional. Both feature the Aero Glass interface and Windows Media Center, while Professional adds an Encrypted File System option, Location Aware Printing and some other niceties.

There’s also the Enterprise and Ultimate version where you’ll get BitLocker encryption and DirectAccess for corporate networks. Ultimate and Enterprise are essentially the same thing, but Enterprise is available with a volume license for corporate customers whereas Ultimate is for consumers. Moreover there’s also Windows 7 Starter, which is the most barebones, capable of running only three apps at the same time. There’s also Windows 7 Home Basic, which appears to be Microsoft’s attempt to slow down Linux growth abroad with a cheap version of Windows.