Windows 7 Family Pack is Now Back for Sale

No Japan either. Seems software companies want to keep punishing us expats for moving out here. Most likely they are working out how to double the price for Japan as the normal premium on English software.

They're trying to convince mroe people to migrate from Windows XP, not that it's a bad thing. but yea Time to move on

Great deal, but don't ever call for support on license problems, moving licenses, etc. Their phone support people can only understand (one code == one license) and will tell you your product code is invalid. Hours of phone run-around.

They might be better off just opening up volume licensing to consumers.

the late bird gets the late worm. what a worm. well worth the wait.

What can a household of pirates do with 3 upgrade licenses?

Like they ever sold 1 unit in India anyway...




Nothing. And you just need 1 pirate per household.

Yeah, but its the upgrade version, what about us XP users??....cant run an upgrade to 7 from XP!

wish they had a family pro pack, i'd gladly upgrade my machines but ... not to home

LOL, yea you just need one licensed pirate per household.

I wouldn't mind having this except using non-upgrades. I know it'd be less useful for most people, but new computers + XP on the old ones could save me a decent amount of money.

I never liked the Home versions of Windows. They lack Software Restriction Policy. (Extremely useful for preventing malware, as it allows you to have a whitelist of what can/cannot run.)

Why can't they release the "Pro-sumer Family Pack" with three Window 7 Professional licenses?

Why does Microsoft even offer Home Premium? Why not just Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate?

I don't know if this trick still works, but it did on Vista... Just use your Windows 7 upgrade CD to install a fresh copy of windows (format HD) without entering the keycode and uncheck "auto-activate". Then install Windows 7 again over Windows 7 as an "Upgrade" this time with the keycode.

The Family Upgrade Pack was $199 in Canada, not $149 (which is American).
Yes it works on WinXP.
The OS is Windows 7 Home Premium which is all anyone needs.
But the "upgrade" installation is short-sighted, because sooner or later you will wish to reinstall the OS (maybe a coupla years from now) and then you will have problems.
You can always increase your installed Win7 OS to any version, from within Win7.
Regards

The family pack is a really good deal if you actually have 3 computers that aren't already running Win7 and have the horsepower to take advantage of it. I would have bought it if I didn't already have a MSDN license.

They should make all previous Win 7 versions 3 packs, Then I'd upgrade 1 vista and 1 XP. Too late too spend the money now.

It says upgrade but you can do a fresh install from it.

It's about time they brought this back. Although I call shenanigans on the "while supplies last" part. Do they actually expect us to believe they have a limited number of licenses for Windows 7? This should simply be made a permanent deal for people who want to license multiple machines.

Are people still complaining that their hardware cannot handle windows 7? A P4 can do it just fine. I have a dual core 1.3 Ghz laptop that is awesome with 7...

at this price point why don't they just make individual licenses go for 50 (ok, 49.99) bucks apiece?

this seems to be one of those too-good-to-be-true deals... the price is even cheaper than oem licenses

China IS on the list - they are maybe hoping for actual revenue from China now?

I tried to install my "upgrade" Win 7 license on a new hard drive, after the old drive it was on burnt out. Windows 7 would not take the license and flagged it as a clean install. I contacted Microsoft, and after one hour on the phone with them, they refused to allow me to use the license, and one rep hung up on me. Horrible service. Save yourself the aggravation, don't use the upgrade license to do a clean install. Microsoft's license activation reps refused to help me get my old license to work on the new hard drive.

Because the upgrade license is completely useless if you do a clean install and try to use it.

You sure about that? Other windows upgrades only wanted you to provide the cd from the old os to verify licensing. Admittedly, I haven't done an "upgrade" install of windows since the miserable failures of win31-win95.

I use my Win 7 RC CD to install a basic "license" over XP, and then upgrade from that. Turn the Date/Time BIOS settings to the proper dates, mind.

This works.

I'm not sure what everyone is talking about with the Win 7 Upgrade license. Is this for Win 7 Home only? I did that Win 7 pre-purchase where I got Win 7 home for like $40 and Win 7 pro for $80 or something like that. They were upgrade licenses, but I installed Win 7 Pro to a clean Harddrive. The install never asked for proof of previous Windows ownership.

In regards to the term upgrade in this case, it merely refers to that you own a previous version of windows, xp or vista. As far as the type of install you choose, you can do an upgrade or clean install with either type of disc. Comming from xp of course you have to do a clean install, but that can be done with either disc (including the family pack)

I'm glad to see the Family Pack is back. But I'd like to see some sort of extended deal: 3 for $150, 4 for $200, etc., without going for 6 for $300. A few of us have more than three computers at home.

I wish they offered fair upgrades for the higher SKUs... I guess I'll be stuck on Vista x64 Ultimate until I build my next computer.