Windows 7 Family Pack Priced at $20-$30 More?

By Marcus Yam
published

Sleuthing skills unearth Windows 7 Home Premium possible prices.

Although Microsoft hasn't announced or even hinted at anything regarding a Family Pack license bundle for Windows 7, last week we heard fairly convincing evidence that there will be a special pack for households looking to upgrade more than one computer.

In the licensing agreement for a recently leaked build of Windows 7 Home Premium, there was a section that read: "If you are a 'Qualified Family Pack User', you may install one copy of the software marked as 'Family Pack' on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there." (Read more here.)

While the wordage pertaining to the family pack has since been removed in more recent builds of Windows 7 Home Premium, the word is out and now people have found evidence of a Family Pack along with very unofficial pricing.

Ed Bott blogged on ZDNet about a product code, GFC-00236, which turns up some pretty interesting search results.

Before the listing was pulled, Expercom had the product "WINDOWS 7 FAMILY PACK/ HOME PREMIUM UPGRADE (GFC-00236)" for $136.95.

Greymaple University IT Computer Sales also had "W7 FAMILY PACK - HOME PREM UPG" listed for $144.95 before it was taken down. (Cached here.)

While the prices aren't official yet – just as the Family Pack is still unannounced – signs point to it being not to being that much more expensive than the regular Home Premium Upgrade, which is officially $119.95.

If the Family Pack with three licenses will indeed be just $20-$30 more than the SKU with just one, it'll be a no-brainer for those with at two computers or more – and really, these days who doesn't? Some families might even need multiple Family Packs to get everyone caught up to Windows 7.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jhansonxi
    If only available as an upgrade then it's less of a deal. A lot of home builders will have to buy a full retail version regardless. Is there any mention of a non-upgrade family pack?
    Reply
  • brendano257
    Three letters: OEM, that's really all that matters for most home builders.
    Reply
  • jsloan
    wow that is great, people will be able to get the f*ck out of vista...
    Reply
  • 08nwsula
    I think it's a great idea. If I could get os's that cheap, I might start buying them.
    Reply
  • lifelesspoet
    I suspect a lot of people will be doing 'family pack' installations whether or not they release one to the public. Now, I know a lot of pirates who won't pay for it, of which I have sworn of piracy myself and switched to free open source software. But the people that I know that do buy software don't understand or don't care about the idea of user licenses. A dvd works in any device, you can buy, sell or trade console games and thats the way it is. Whether you agree with the concept of user licenses or not, this a significant source of "piracy" for honest consumers. 20-30 dollars more is better then 0-0 dollars more and microsoft would be smart to offer such an option.
    Reply
  • neodude007
    Not gonna lie, I bought the OEM Vista x64 Home Premium and I don't plan on spending any hard earned (in this crap economy) cash on Windows 7 until I see some noticeable gaming performance increases or something else big. As of now, I installed the newest RC from the M$ website and it just looks OK to me, doesn't seem different visually or performance wise but then again I have a 3.8GHz Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM and SLI 8800GT so Vista was never an issue.

    I also am NOT a fan of the way you minimize windows in W7. I hate how they all clusterfook in to the little icon like if you open several Firefox windows and minimize them they pretty much disappear and you have to hover the dam mouse over the small Firefox icon and wait for a "live view" popup and THEN decide which window you want based off a small picture, THEN click on it. I like having crap in my task bar when I minimize it, not hiding inside an icon in my task bar. I would imaging I could change that functionality but to me its lame as-is.

    Basically I am mad that I spent moneyz on Vista and they come out with Windows 7 a small amount of time later, patting themselves on the back for such great turn-around time....
    Reply
  • fwaits
    NeoDude, just go into the taskbar properties and change the icons from collapsing always to only when the taskbar is full and you will get the results you want. Just an FYI.
    Reply
  • bardia
    Um, Windows 7 didn't have a quick turnaround time from Vista. It will almost 3 years. Just because XP was around for 7 years, doesn't mean that should be the standard with an OS.

    XP got so obsolete by the time Vista come out it was ridiculous.

    Try installing RAID or AHCI on XP without slipstreaming. IT WANTS A FLOPPY DISK.
    Reply
  • neodude007
    Hmmm bardia, you do have some point about oldschool XP cds and a lack of drivers. You definetly need to go about that stuff in a more 'techy' way by slipsteaming or having floppy (AND the drive itself....) to do some of those things. I also love that Vista already knows how to use my onboard network and I believe sound too, without having to have drivers laying around. How am I supposed to run updates if the PC can't go online... sigh USB hard drives / flash drives to the rescue.

    As for quick turnaround I suppose I meant from the time I purchased Vista. Newegg says I bought it 11/5/2007 so its was only about a year and a half ago, oh how time flies.
    Reply
  • cletus_slackjawd
    Family Pack=win if the rumors are true. I was contemplating buying 1 copy while this half off sale is going on but now I'll wait to see if this family pack is a go. I have 5 computers in house and would go for at least one round of Windoz 7 on the primary computers. Xp will stay on the 2 laptops.
    Reply