Microsoft is offering Windows 7 upgrades to students for only £30. The special offer runs until 3 January 2010, and entitles any student with a higher-education email address to purchase an upgrade copy of either Windows 7 Home Premium, or Windows 7 Professional.

Bizarrely, the software giant is offering both versions for exactly the same price, despite the fact that Professional offers additional features including remote desktop working.

One potential sticking point is that Microsoft is only offering download copies, which could cause problems for students trying to download the 3GB file on throttled broadband connections, or those with severe download caps.

Copies are restricted to one download per email address, and students will need to register at Microsoft's special offer website. The site will start taking pre-orders on 17 September.

Windows 7 will be available on 22 October, though whether anybody will be able to download it that day given the massive strain on the servers, is anybody's guess.