Is Family Pack Licensing for Windows 7 Becoming a Reality?

By Richard Hay, on July 2nd, 2009

My good friend Kristan Kenny has made quite the discovery as he dug around in some files from a recently leaked copy of Windows 7. Over at his Digital Life site he shares what he found in the Windows 7 Home Premium license terms.

Here are two key excerpts:

b. Family Pack. 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. Those computers are the “licensed computers” and are subject to these license terms. If you do not know whether you are a Qualified Family Pack User, visit go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=141399 or contact the Microsoft affiliate serving your country.

This is quite interesting and will please many people if it turns out to be true, however it looks like this may only be for Windows 7 Home Premium; when I compared the license agreements, I noticed that Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate editions do not include a “family pack” clause.

Ed Bott posted a follow up story to Kristan’s tip about this and predicts that Microsoft will sell this family pack for $189. In fact, Ed wrote about this possibility a month ago when he discussed Windows 7 pricing before it was officially announced.

I say good on you Microsoft for acknowledging the cost a household can encounter to upgrade more than one computer in a home. Since there are typically multiple PC’s in homes this type of license makes total sense.

Richard Hay (3356 Posts)

Richard is the Owner of WindowsObserver.com and has been involved in tech for over 25 years. His first website – AnotherWin95.com – came online in 1995. Back then he used GeoCities Web Hosting for it and what you see here today is the result of the work he has continued on the site since 1995. In January 2010 his community contributions were recognized by Microsoft when he was awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for Windows Desktop Experience. In January 2011 he was renewed as a Microsoft MVP but in a new category called Windows Expert - Consumer and in January 2012 he received the award for the third time.

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