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Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return

By | September 1, 2010, 12:01am PDT

Last year, in the run-up to the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft rewarded early adopters with a series of discounted upgrade offers. And then, as quickly as they appeared, those deals vanished.

But if you’re willing to wait a month or so, one of the best of those deals is about to make a triumphant return. Beginning October 3 in the U.S., you’ll once again be able to buy the Windows 7 Family Pack, which gives you three upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for an estimated retail price of $149.99. (Typically, online retailers discount that price by 10 bucks or so.)

If you can use all three licenses at an average cost of $50 each, this deal represents a savings of 58% off the best available retail price of roughly $120 for a single upgrade license. As I noted last year when this deal first appeared:

If you have two or more PCs in your home and you want to upgrade them to Windows 7, this deal is for you. […] It includes two DVDs: one copy each of the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade installation media. You get a single product key that can be activated on up to three different PCs.

[...]

The license says you can install Family Pack upgrades on up to three PCs in the same household, for use by residents of that household. When I asked Microsoft whether it was OK to use this license in a home business, I was told, officially, “There is no restriction around use of a license for business purposes conducted within the home,” although naturally they recommended Windows 7 Professional for those situations.

Nothing in the license prevents you from mixing and matching the 32-bit and 64-bit versions on up to three PCs in your household. But no, you can’t share licenses with your neighbor or your cousin in Peoria.

According to Microsoft, the discounted three-pack will also be available in Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, and possibly other markets, with most on-sale dates timed to the one-year anniversary of Windows 7’s launch on October 22.

Microsoft warns that the return of the Family Pack is a limited-time offer and will end when supplies run out. Last year, that took about six weeks.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Topics

Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications.

Disclosure

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.

Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books are currently distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press.

On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.

Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMWare. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth.

Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.

Biography

Ed Bott

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He's served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the author of more than 25 books on Microsoft Windows and Office, including the recently released Windows 7 Inside Out.

Talkback Most Recent of 18 Talkback(s)

  • This is good news.
    I will have to share that with some friends and family looking to upgrade 2-3 computers in their house.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @bobiroc
    Hey bobiroc, I'm shopping to replace my 6 year old DT & NB. Hoping to get similar mileage on the new purchase. I've always bought Intel processors. I would like to know your preference between the I7 chips vs the Phenom II chips. Price on the amd is clearly one issue, but how about performance. I'm told the amd chip can be upgraded later, is that not true of the I7? What if I don't have the same chip in both machines, is there a problem interchanging and using files? I use these a lot for streaming stock market data. Thanks
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kenpete
    4th Sep 2010
  • How do "supplies run out"? (nt)
    nt
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Hallowed are the Ori
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    MS didn't "sell out" of the 3-packs... they instructed all retail stores to remove them from their shelves early once word spread about how good of a deal it was and it got consumers into the stores with no other options but purchasing a single license (more expensive) version. This also created a huge eBay aftermarket which fetched above retail but less than individual sales prices. I for one, was sorry I didn't get in on the deal when they were "in-stock"....
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jjamezzz@...
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @jjamezzz@...

    Conspire much? So you have proof of this right. I mean you can prove that the discs that Microsoft had manufactured in limited supply to coincide with the key codes to allow the multiple activations didn't really sell out and there were many on the shelf and Microsoft said to remove them.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @Hallowed are the Ori

    You only manufacture a certain number of discs that can install and activate multiple times. Is that really hard for you to grasp.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    Great news and an excellent deal on a really killer OS... I managed to snag one the last time, I might have to buy another one to get the rest of the PCs in the house.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Pete "athynz" Athens
    1st Sep 2010
  • But then.....
    @athynz

    it is not a FAMILY pack. I mean if you need two for your family. wink

    My family has 7 computers with a mixture of XP and Vista, plus one virtual XP machine, all licensed and legit and all working fine. I sure as hell will not buy 3 family packs just to move to W7. I have better ways to spend my money than needlessly giving it to MS.

    As the saying goes: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Economister
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @Economister

    You have 7 computers in your household? Really?

    Are any of the members of your household that requires 7 computers students" They can get a copy of Pro for $30.

    But if you don't wanna upgrade then don't. You just have to come here and show that since you are way above the typical 2-3 computer household that Microsoft is not considering you with this offer. If you can afford to have 7 computers then I really don't feel sorry for your economic situation.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    Not good enough. When the NEW Snow Leopard OS came out for the MAC's it was $50 for 5 disc's or $30 for 1. That's quite a large difference in cost to the users. MS still isn't in the ballpark with their pricing. I'm just waiting for my laptop to need replacing and I'm going MAC unless of course Steve Jobs get gready too.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    KPE
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @KPE
    Wow, so you bought your overprice $2000 Mac and get a $50 upgrade. I could have bought a new computer with Windows 7 preloaded for that price.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    day2die
    1st Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    I paid $1800 for my Dell laptop 4 years ago so I don't think $1500 to $2000 is a high price for something that doesn't have problems. We have a desktop iMAC,for 3 years now, and haven;te had "any" problems. How many MS/PC problems have you had ?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    KPE
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @KPE

    Are we talking on the computers being supported or personally owned. My last three builds never gave me any trouble in almost 10 years worth of computing. No viruses, no failed components, nothing and a the computer I used before this last one I gave to my inLaws and they are using it just fine. My last two Dell work Laptops I had a hard drive failure on one of them, but other than that I have had my current laptop for 3.5 years and the one before I had for 4 years. Most of the problems I deal with today are software related and 90% of the malware infected computers I worked on had no security what so ever installed on them or the person disregarded security and clicked on something they should not have or were downloading music/movies/programs using some P2P program that came with infected files.

    Now on the computers I support I have about 2700 Windows Based Workstations from Dell and about 150 iMacs to support. For now I will leave the servers out of it. Using last years stats we have had to repair 4 of the iMacs. 1 with a bad LCD, 2 with failed hard drives and 1 with a blown logic board. So that is about a 2.66% failure ratio. Using the Dell online tracking system from their Warranty Parts Direct we have had 92 submitted cases in the 2009/2010 school year period for failed computers which gives the PCs a failure ratio of 3.4% overall. Now keeping in mind that the PCs brand new were about $600 - $800 brand new depending on specs and the comparable iMacs purchased were $1149 each with educational discounts I think it shows that the PCs are winning. On both systems we have quite a few user generated issues which may result in the computer being imaged or something but I will not count that since that is not the issue here. The PCs are used all day every day and the Macs are only used a few periods of a day so logic would show that the more the computer is used by a variety of users the more likely a problem is going to happen.

    Basically Since Mac's occupy less than 10% of the entire computing world market there is going to be a lot less reported problems. But if you want proof that Macs don't always "just work" I suggest you browse around some of the Mac Based Forums. They are far from perfect. If you took the time to see what hardware actually went into a Mac you will see that they are not really any different than any other mid-high range computer out there. Open a few up and you will see that.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    2nd Sep 2010
  • RE: Windows 7 Family Pack discounts return
    @KPE

    "...unless of course Steve Jobs get greedy too"

    I thought that was pretty obvious already. Oh I corrected your spelling for you too. You realize that the difference you pay for a Mac is all in the OS in the beginning right. The internal hardware is essentially the same as PC usually costing hundreds less. Open a few up and you will see that. Same hardware in a pretty little case.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    bobiroc
    2nd Sep 2010
  • A step in the right direction I suppose
    But let's be real, they still have a quite a ways to go. This packaged deal is still too steep IMHO. But better somethin' than nothin', particularly with the state of current affairs.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    klumper
    1st Sep 2010
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