AfterDawn: News

Windows 7 'Family Pack' has price leaked

The online retailer Expercom has leaked the price of the much anticipated Windows 7 Family Pack, the pack that includes three licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium.

The price will be $137 USD, a decent discount from buying the operating system as a standalone three times.

Microsoft has high hopes for the new operating system, and hopes cheaper retail prices will help it compete with the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard which will only cost $30 to upgrade, or $49 for a family pack.



As a way to appease new Vista owners and bring new purchased to the operating system, Microsoft is offering a discount on "upgrade" versions of the operating system, including a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49 USD.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 10 Jul 2009 14:58

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• 19 comments

• EnigmaCM

  Ok, not the biggest fan for anything Microsoft but one question comes to mind: is this family pack: A) going to to allow me reformat my drive later if i should have problems with my drive, B) if said computer drive crashes, will the license be transferable to another drive (noob question but i am not clear on this), C) will it be a stripped down version of the Premium version and D) could or would it be able to be used on a netbook as well. One last thing: I wonder if it might be possible to dual boot with Google's OS when it comes out?

  10.7.2009 18:41 #1

• dailun

  I don't think anyone can really give you the answer to that other than Microsoft, but based on the current Windows model,
  
  A) going to to allow me reformat my drive later if i should have problems with my drive
  
  I don't see why not or how they can stop you
  
  B) if said computer drive crashes, will the license be transferable to another drive (noob question but i am not clear on this)
  
  This is typically allowed
  
  C) will it be a stripped down version of the Premium version
  
  I would expect it to be something like XP Home vs. XP Pro
  
  D) could or would it be able to be used on a netbook as well.
  
  Don't see why not
  
  One last thing: I wonder if it might be possible to dual boot with Google's OS when it comes out?
  
  Since no one knows what Google's OS is going to look like (and from all indications the first version will be a lightweight version designed for Netbooks) I would guess that you could, but I won't be running Google OS anytime in the near (or distant) future. I have too much invested in Microsoft based apps, and 2)To borrow from a mod on this forum. "Most people aren't interested in assembling their car from scratch, either"

  10.7.2009 22:05 #2

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by EnigmaCM: Ok, not the biggest fan for anything Microsoft but one question comes to mind: is this family pack: A) going to to allow me reformat my drive later if i should have problems with my drive, B) if said computer drive crashes, will the license be transferable to another drive (noob question but i am not clear on this), C) will it be a stripped down version of the Premium version and D) could or would it be able to be used on a netbook as well. One last thing: I wonder if it might be possible to dual boot with Google's OS when it comes out?
  A, B, C) The article is somewhat vague as to whether the Family Pack pricing is FULL VERSIONS or UPGRADE VERSIONS ($137.99 would be a $12 discount from three $49.99 UPGRADE VERSIONS, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were still not FULL), so depending on that, the answers could be different.
  
  D) You probably wouldn't WANT to use it on a netbook, but as long as the netbook has 1.5-2GB+ RAM, it may run decently.
  
  One Last Thing) Yes. Even if they found a way to NOT allow it, you'd see antitrust flags going up all over the place, so it would be utterly stupid (moreso than usual for them) for them to even try it.
  
  
  
  I guess it's nice that M$ is finally offering discounted multi-packs for home users, but it's still only 3 at a seemingly minor discount compared to 5 for Mac OS X (w/o any license/activation headaches).

  10.7.2009 23:42 #3

• bsuhater

  D) could or would it be able to be used on a netbook as well.
  
  I'm running the release candidate home premium version through Microsoft connect on a hp mini with one gig of Ram.
  
  The thing works fine - frankly better than the original XP OS. You'll be fine runnng it on a Netbook.

  11.7.2009 01:03 #4

• Morreale

  If it can run XP then it can run 7 cause in terms of memory use they are very similar, almost the same. Unlike Vista, which basically requires twice as much as XP.

  11.7.2009 01:28 #5

• DXR88

  no thanks, ill just wait till Windows 7 Pirate Pack is available for free.

  11.7.2009 02:10 #6

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by DXR88: no thanks, ill just wait till Windows 7 Pirate Pack is available for free.Now there's something I can agree with wholeheartedly! ;-)

  11.7.2009 03:00 #7

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by Morreale: If it can run XP then it can run 7 cause in terms of memory use they are very similar, almost the same. Unlike Vista, which basically requires twice as much as XP.No, many devices do not have vista/win7 drivers...the list of devices such as this are sometimes very suprising, a generic 10-year-old 10/100 NIC might have drivers built into vista...yet a 1-year old 3COM NIC does not have vista drivers available.
  
  Also, Win7 should work great on netbooks. As far as I can tell, Microsoft only made the x86 version of Win7 for netbooks...not much market for 32-bit desktop CPUs these days.

  11.7.2009 05:10 #8

• xnonsuchx

  Quote:Originally posted by Morreale: If it can run XP then it can run 7 cause in terms of memory use they are very similar, almost the same. Unlike Vista, which basically requires twice as much as XP.No, many devices do not have vista/win7 drivers...the list of devices such as this are sometimes very suprising, a generic 10-year-old 10/100 NIC might have drivers built into vista...yet a 1-year old 3COM NIC does not have vista drivers available.
  
  Also, Win7 should work great on netbooks. As far as I can tell, Microsoft only made the x86 version of Win7 for netbooks...not much market for 32-bit desktop CPUs these days.
  Funny that Intel ridiculed (and probably illegally maligned) AMD for having consumer 64-bit so early (because Intel wasn't ready to). It must irritate Intel to have 64-bit x86 'code' constantly referred to as "AMD64" (even M$ does!), but then even THEY had to abandon their server IA64 for a more AMD64-like version (EMT64).
  
  I used to be very pro-AMD, but ever since they bought ATI (who I hated...at least support-wise) and 'rested on their laurels' too long (Intel's Core 2 beat the pants off Athlon 64 X2), they lost a lot of my enthusiasm for them. Phenom II is a decent comeback, though...so far, but I'm still weary of ATI-labelled chipsets (even at work, a lot of our machines work better on mediocre Intel Q35 Express graphics than medium-low end Radeon HD PCI-E cards). I understand the high-end chipsets are much better, though.

  11.7.2009 08:22 #9

• dude845

  I have windows 7 Ultimate right now. Running on a old school Geforce MX400, had to run the install in windows XP SP3 mod to get the card working (but it works), running DirectX 11 (not sure if it is even out, but my DXDiag says I am running it..). 512mb ram and Pentium 3 processor. Works better then XP ;). Great improvement over vista!

  11.7.2009 19:11 #10

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by dude845: I have windows 7 Ultimate right now. Running on a old school Geforce MX400, had to run the install in windows XP SP3 mod to get the card working (but it works), running DirectX 11 (not sure if it is even out, but my DXDiag says I am running it..). 512mb ram and Pentium 3 processor. Works better then XP ;). Great improvement over vista!dxdiag will show what version of DirectX is installed (so will always say 11 in W7 until if and when a 11.x or 12+ comes out). 10/11 features will only work on GeForce cards that are 8000-series or higher, so it's essentially running as DirectX 9 'mode' on your card.

  11.7.2009 21:05 #11

• Joshewah

  Quote:Quote:Originally posted by Morreale: If it can run XP then it can run 7 cause in terms of memory use they are very similar, almost the same. Unlike Vista, which basically requires twice as much as XP.No, many devices do not have vista/win7 drivers...the list of devices such as this are sometimes very suprising, a generic 10-year-old 10/100 NIC might have drivers built into vista...yet a 1-year old 3COM NIC does not have vista drivers available.
  
  Also, Win7 should work great on netbooks. As far as I can tell, Microsoft only made the x86 version of Win7 for netbooks...not much market for 32-bit desktop CPUs these days.
  Funny that Intel ridiculed (and probably illegally maligned) AMD for having consumer 64-bit so early (because Intel wasn't ready to). It must irritate Intel to have 64-bit x86 'code' constantly referred to as "AMD64" (even M$ does!), but then even THEY had to abandon their server IA64 for a more AMD64-like version (EMT64).
  
  I used to be very pro-AMD, but ever since they bought ATI (who I hated...at least support-wise) and 'rested on their laurels' too long (Intel's Core 2 beat the pants off Athlon 64 X2), they lost a lot of my enthusiasm for them. Phenom II is a decent comeback, though...so far, but I'm still weary of ATI-labelled chipsets (even at work, a lot of our machines work better on mediocre Intel Q35 Express graphics than medium-low end Radeon HD PCI-E cards). I understand the high-end chipsets are much better, though.You must remember that AMD has smaller workforce and less resources than Intel. Its going to be difficult for AMD to be a step ahead of Intel in performance again. They are doing a great job keeping up with the Phenom 2 though especially in the price/performance ratio where they actually DO come out ahead.
  
  As for ATi graphics cards... I think that comes down to fanboy-isms. I've used a wide range of cards from both nVidia and ATi. They all work as intended. If drivers are an issue from either company (though, I have never had severe 1st party driver issues) get third party drivers.

  12.7.2009 11:32 #12

• B33rdrnkr

  Originally posted by DXR88: no thanks, ill just wait till Windows 7 Pirate Pack is available for free.
  I concur

  12.7.2009 20:53 #13

• IcyCool

  I know this is a Windows topic, but I still don't get why everyone doesn't realize that they're getting the SAME DISC in the Leopard family pack as it is in the single pack. No serial numbers? Do people have brains?

  12.7.2009 22:56 #14

• xnonsuchx

  Originally posted by IcyCool: I know this is a Windows topic, but I still don't get why everyone doesn't realize that they're getting the SAME DISC in the Leopard family pack as it is in the single pack. No serial numbers? Do people have brains?
  You mean why buy the family pack instead of the single copy? If you wanted to LEGALLY have it on multiple machines, like most retail software, of course. There are actually still SOME honest (not brainless!) people out there, you know.

  13.7.2009 00:45 #15

• IcyCool

  Quote:Originally posted by IcyCool: I know this is a Windows topic, but I still don't get why everyone doesn't realize that they're getting the SAME DISC in the Leopard family pack as it is in the single pack. No serial numbers? Do people have brains?
  You mean why buy the family pack instead of the single copy? If you wanted to LEGALLY have it on multiple machines, like most retail software, of course. There are actually still SOME honest (not brainless!) people out there, you know.But there's absolutely NO legality issue if the disc doesn't require a serial number, doesn't say Family Pack anywhere on it, or even reject the install if the disc has been used too many times.

  13.7.2009 17:33 #16

• xnonsuchx

  Quote:Quote:Originally posted by IcyCool: I know this is a Windows topic, but I still don't get why everyone doesn't realize that they're getting the SAME DISC in the Leopard family pack as it is in the single pack. No serial numbers? Do people have brains?
  You mean why buy the family pack instead of the single copy? If you wanted to LEGALLY have it on multiple machines, like most retail software, of course. There are actually still SOME honest (not brainless!) people out there, you know.But there's absolutely NO legality issue if the disc doesn't require a serial number, doesn't say Family Pack anywhere on it, or even reject the install if the disc has been used too many times.
  That's only if you believe license agreements have no meaning. Technically, you might be able to make the argument that a single license on multiple machines is OK IF only one machine was being used at any one time, but "Family Pack" is called such with the idea that multiple people (in a household) would be using it at once. If you somehow got caught/audited (which usually only happens to businesses), you would be required to show a disc, retail box and/or receipt for each copy in use. If you couldn't, the law would be on the publisher's/government's side to successfully sue you for copyright violations.
  
  Just because you're highly unlikely to get caught doesn't mean it's legal. It would be like picking a lock to get into others' private property just to walk around a while...Since you didn't damage anything, does that mean it wasn't trespassing?

  13.7.2009 21:17 #17

• DXR88

  in win9x days it was 5 activations per license. in other words you could install it on 5 different machines. 2K where licensed based on the number of CPU's you had you could install it 4 times on a single CPU or once on a machine w/ 4 CPUs.
  
  XP/Vista are license Cheater in a sense you are given 2 licenses per install. the key word being per. +1 license = 2 cores logical or not, so with a quad core your only getting one license.

  13.7.2009 22:25 #18

• IguanaC64

  Well...I can only go from XP licensing (I never had to deal with Vista licensing).
  
  If the family packs are like the XP OEM licenses then you can never install them on a new machine. That license dies with your computer. If you upgrade the processor too much ("too much" is a somewhat undefined term in the licensing) then the OEM license is rendered invalid as well.
  
  Full versions were always transferable to another machine with no legal issues.
  
  So the questions are:
  
  Are these upgrade licenses?
  
  Are these similar to OEM or full licenses?
  
  Microsoft licensing has always been overly complicated for small business and home users.

  20.7.2009 12:09 #19