DailyTech - Windows 7 Family Pack Makes a Return

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Software Windows 7 Family Pack Makes a Return
Brandon Hill (Blog) - September 1, 2010 10:26 PM

24 comment(s) - last by ThePooBurner.. on Sep 29 at 6:19 PM

$150 Windows 7 Family Pack returns -- for a limited time

Many were sad to see Microsoft ditch the Windows 7 Family Pack right in the middle of the 2009 holiday shopping season. Well, Windows fans can rejoice because Microsoft has brought back Family Pack to celebrate Windows 7's one-year anniversary.

As many of you already know, Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three licensed upgrades of Windows 7 Home Premium for just $149.99 instead of $119.99 for each license. According to Microsoft's Ashely Brown, Family Pack will be available from the Microsoft Store and authorized retailers beginning on October 3 in the United States.

Those outside of the U.S. (Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia) will have to wait until October 22 to get the Family Pack.

Unfortunately, just like before, the availability of the Windows 7 Family Pack won't be a long-term offering -- Microsoft says that the offer is "while supplies last".

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Question

By ViroMan on 9/1/2010 10:44:04 PM , Rating: 2

Do these 3 pc need to be in the same house? I live with my brother but, my mother is a state a way.

RE: Question

By GoodBytes on 9/1/2010 11:01:46 PM , Rating: 2

No.

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RE: Question

By MadMan007 on 9/1/2010 11:13:41 PM , Rating: 2

You're really just buying 3 licenses, so no. If they can get their hands on a good ISO of the disk you could just send someone else the license key and MS can't say anything.

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RE: Question

By arazok on 9/2/10, Rating: -1

RE: Question

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 9/2/2010 8:52:20 AM , Rating: 5

Isn't that... umm... "stealing" ;-)

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RE: Question

By arazok on 9/2/2010 9:43:49 AM , Rating: 1

<does awkward foot shuffle while staring at floor>

No. I call Microsoft, tell them I’m installing this license on this machine. Microsoft checks records, sees it’s installed on another computer with the same key. Microsoft says OK!

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RE: Question

By Taft12 on 9/2/2010 10:01:40 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Isn't that... umm... "stealing" ;-)

Nope! That word doesn't apply to digital copies. "Illegal copying" is the term you are looking for.

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RE: Question

By rcc on 9/2/2010 12:53:53 PM , Rating: 2

Gotta love euphemisms, or not.

Excrement or sh*), it still smells the same.

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RE: Question

By AstroGuardian on 9/3/2010 4:24:09 AM , Rating: 1

No it's not. When MS solves all bugs in windows the i will "want" to buy the product.
And it's Microsoft's concern whether or not it is stealing. If MS can put SASSER in my unpatched Windows 2003 Server then it can protect it's products too.

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RE: Question

By marvdmartian on 9/7/2010 9:35:22 AM , Rating: 2

More importantly, has anyone found a way to "upgrade" a computer to Win7, without having to have Vista on there in the first place?

In other words, have they found a work-around to the upgrade, like they did with Vista upgrade, where you first installed it as a stand-alone (without activating it), then "upgraded" it by installing it again?

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RE: Question

By Irish Patient on 9/8/2010 3:19:38 PM , Rating: 2

It still does, or at least it still did when Win7 was first released. I bought an upgrade to Win7 Professional during the Microsoft student and faculty promotion. While I did install it on a laptop that had originally come with Vista Home Premium, my first step was to erase the entire hard drive (including the MBR) with the DiskPart command. I found out the hard way that I needed a clean install with the MBR erased before I could reinstall Photoshop CS4. Functionally, this was the equivalent of installing an upgrade to a laptop without Vista preinstalled.

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Only for Microsoft pals

By bwave on 9/1/2010 11:18:22 PM , Rating: 5

Unfortunately, it looks like once again it will only be available for those select few big box stores that put us little guys out of business. Why only offer at Best Buy and Wal*mart? Why not sell through the authorized distribution channels? (ie D&H, Tech Data, etc)

RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By PsychoPif on 9/2/2010 8:45:30 AM , Rating: 2

I'll go out of limb here and say that it's because they buy by the crap load and you only buy by the load?

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By Taft12 on 9/2/2010 10:08:42 AM , Rating: 2

Not exactly true. The big box stores like Staples and Best Buy DON'T sell the OEM version of Windows 7 (the one that costs $100 at Newegg). They sell the retail version that costs $200.

Where the white-boxers DO get screwed by MS is they must pay $100 for OEM copies of Windows 7 they install on customer systems, but Dell and Acer buy for significantly less.

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By Dwayne Bozworth on 9/2/2010 10:41:29 AM , Rating: 1

You may be right.

But what's the difference between "Family Edition" and "Professional"? I was thinking about getting a Win7 Academic Professional version.

Is there any difference?

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By LRonaldHubbs on 9/2/2010 11:00:40 AM , Rating: 2

According to the article and the picture above, the Family Pack is Home Premium. Yes there are differences between Home Premium and Professional:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions#Co...

The biggest difference that most users care about is that Professional has XP compatibility mode through Virtual PC while Home Premium does not.

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By UNHchabo on 9/2/2010 2:33:42 PM , Rating: 2

There are two other differences that I think the average DailyTech user should know about.

1) The ability to be a Remote Desktop server. I know you can use VNC or whatever, but I do like Remote Desktop, and the client is pre-installed on every Windows machine since XP, if not before.
2) Support for Win7 Home Premium ends in 2015, while support for Win7 Pro ends in 2020.

Of course, since the world will end in 2012, item #2 isn't really an issue. :)

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By Irish Patient on 9/8/2010 3:46:18 PM , Rating: 2

Three additional differences:

(1) Professional can join an active domain. Home Premium (included in the Family pack) can't. Not good if you have to take your laptop to a school or business.

(2) Professional includes the group policy control panel [gpedit.msc] from Server 2008. This is very convenient for customizing Win7, although you can make all or most of the same changes by editing the registry.

(3) Professional is more flexible if you want to create your disk images on a networked storage device.

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By UNHchabo on 9/15/2010 10:57:46 AM , Rating: 2

I'd say 2 and 3 aren't really a big deal, even to the average power user.

As for 1, no business worth its salt will allow a computer they don't own to join the domain. No school I know of does this either; you only log on to the domain if you're using a lab computer, otherwise they use a browser-based application to couple your computer's MAC address to your school account.

In my mind, unless you want either XP Mode, or Remote Desktop Server, there's no need to get Win7 Pro.

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RE: Only for Microsoft pals

By Reclaimer77 on 9/2/2010 5:03:28 PM , Rating: 1

Is that a rhetorical question? Because it's pretty obvious why they would go with big box stores over "little guys". They more more merchandise with you, hello. It's not some plot to put you guys out of business.

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Magic DVD drive

By AstroGuardian on 9/3/2010 4:21:27 AM , Rating: 1

I have a Windows 7 HomePremium DVD which came with some other equipment as a donation. It installs already activated. It says it's genuine even though i have installed it on god knows how many machines....

What kind of licensing does it do? Maybe Gates knows...

RE: Magic DVD drive

By ThePooBurner on 9/29/2010 6:19:03 PM , Rating: 2

I want one.

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Why can't there be a family pack for Windows 7 Ultimate?

By bmheiar on 9/2/2010 9:07:31 AM , Rating: 2

I wish they would do this for the Windows 7 Ultimate edition. I prefer the full featured version of Windows not the stripped down versions that they sell. Oh we will remove these features and call it Home Premium, then add some of those features back in and call it Professional, and then add the rest of the features and call it Ultimate. I know they are tailoring the software to different versions to suit everyone's needs and preferences. Some do not want all the features of the Professional or Ultimate editions because they will not use them. That is their choice. Just like it is mine that I want all features instead of stripped down versions.

So I wish they would do a family pack for the Ultimate edition. My father still uses a lot of software that only runs on XP. So Home Premium is useless for him. So when I upgraded his computer last month, I put on Windows 7 Ultimate on it.

Ahh,

By RugMuch on 9/2/2010 4:04:08 PM , Rating: 2

See it's always nice to get these family packs and then create one virtual machine embedded within the next. While running the stolen ultimate version as your main op.