Microsoft revealed Monday that its business customers will get access to the new Windows 7 operating system more than a month before the consumer version ships.

Windows 7 screen shot
(Click for larger image and for full photo gallery)

Enterprise customers who subscribe to any of a number of Microsoft's Volume Licensing programs can get Windows 7 as early as Sept. 1, Microsoft senior VP Bill Veghte said during a keynote at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans.

The consumer version of Windows 7 is not slated to become available until Oct. 22nd.

During his keynote, Veghte pitched a number of Windows 7's attributes. Somewhat ironically, one of the features he highlighted most was the new operating system's ability to run applications built for the aging Windows XP OS and the even older Windows 2000 platform—both still popular among businesses.

Microsoft is "making sure that the investments that customers have in their Windows XP and Windows 2000 applications will work going forward," Veghte said. He noted that all Windows 7 Professional customers are licensed to use a virtualized copy of Windows XP in virtual machine mode.

Microsoft has good reason to be concerned with Windows 7's ability to run XP applications. 39.1% of IT pros polled in a survey released this week by management tools vendor ScriptLogic cited compatibility as the biggest roadblock in the path to a Windows 7 upgrade.

Perhaps more distressing for Microsoft, the survey claimed that 59.3% of the 1,100 IT managers polled said their companies have no plans to upgrade from their current operating system—most likely XP—to Windows 7.

Still, Veghte was optimistic about Windows 7's prospects. He noted that the OS will run on all PCs capable of running Windows Vista, meaning that businesses and consumers who've purchased a desktop or laptop in the past couple of years won't have to shell out for new hardware to install Windows 7.

Businesses, at least those that are Microsoft subscription customers, will have to wait less than three months to find out for themselves.

InformationWeek has published an in depth report on Windows 7. Download the report here (registration required).