Microsoft Pulls Plug on Windows 7 Family Pack

[buzznut]

Anybody interested in starting a grass roots movement? This really sucks, I was waiting for my student loans to upgrade my family computers. 1 more month would have been long enough..

Hopefully there will continue to be deals for students. I wonder if enough people bitched about this that microsoft would listen?

Eh, probably not. But I would sign a petition anyway.

 

[krazyderek]

"We simply can't print more activation codes, totally out of the question, it's selling to well."

 

[zelog]

[citation][nom]radguy[/nom]I have been looking to buy a family pack version for about 3 weeks now and haven't found a copy or at least not at 149. Pretty sad cause I was going to upgrade my parents desktop, my sisters laptop, and my one of my laptops. Too bad I won't be paying 100+ to upgrade any of them.[/citation]

Eh, did you try, like, maybe, microsoft.com?

By the way... family pack is still available in the UK,
http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/Microsoft/Windows-7-Home-Premium-Family-Pack-Upgrade

 

[buzznut]

[citation][nom]remyj[/nom]I too was planning on buying a WIN7 Family pack to upgrade the 3 Dell D610 laptops my various family members use. For $50 per laptop, it's a worthwhile upgrade. For the posted regular price of $119 for a Windows 7 Home Premium single license, the 3 way laptop migration no longer makes sense to me. We'll just use the installed XP until MS support dies in 2014. They could have had another $150 of my money. Now they get nothing until we replace the machines and buy new laptops with a Windows 7 license and installation already on them. I have to believe there are millions of people with similar situations that would have spent the $50 per older machine to upgrade but will not spend the $119 per machine to upgrade.[/citation]


Me neither. They will be getting less of my money as well, so this is a stupid idea. May as well keep XP, it works fine. Yes, 7 would be nice but only if my family can afford it.

 

[belardo]

Hey Microfart... You guys are retards! Sure Ballmer and the rest of the CEOs won't notice a dent with their multi-million dollar salaries. But their share-holders will notice a bit... but us customers notice even much much more.

I'm running RC7 on my computers. I had plans on buying the family pack to install on 3 of my XP computers. Oh well.

My XP licensees are legit, so reinstalling XP on them is not going to be critical. I've liked a lot about Win7... but something are still STUPID which are hold-overs from Vista.*

So what does this mean? I'll be reverting back to XP starting in January. My Gaming system goes back to DX9 with my DX10 card... and my other two computers will remain as WindowsXP until the hardware is DEAD.

MS.. thanks, you saved me $150. I really should get around to trying out Utunbu-whatever.

* Idiot thing of vista/win7 (one of many). When in explorer, and viewing by DETAILS... Lets say you sort files by SIZE and select 20 some ODD files (150mb+) - then click SORT by Name. The selected files are DE-SELECTED! ARGH! From Win9x to WinXP - those files are and SHOULD still be selected! STUPID STUPID!

I'm so not doing this upgrade, thinking of removing Win7 off my main computer now.

 

[Guest]

As My Mom used to say ..."You'll be cutting off your nose to spite your face ..."

Microsoft pulling the Windows 7 Family pack pricing hurts.

I would think those people looking to upgrade several PC's in their house will now upgrade none ... I mean even $150 is a lot of money at least to all the people in my social sphere ... where they gonna get $300 to do the same thing they were gonna do for $150? ... Vista is not much different from win7 ... I think it would've been nice to upgrade but not for all that money.

Paul Thurrott ... You have some influence over there ... have a word with them will ya!


Microsoft may be doing it for price value perception, but its certainly not winning them any friends ... and they really picked the wrong time to do it ... Bah Humbug Mr Balmer!

 

[ossie]

Was just an appetizer for wintarded micro$uxx fankiddies...
Now it's ca$h-in time for the blinged clunker (vi$hta-sp2+ aka $even)!

 

[hok]

I work in the pharmaceutical logistics industry.. if we can make do with less then 5% margins, i'm sure microsoft can make do with 50% ... good riddens MF MS! Ahoy matey....

 

[Kl2amer]

Nice job Microsoft. It's a recession, it's christmas, so yeah good job all around. I for one will not be upgrading my families 4 computers past Vista and XP that are on them now. I will not pay in excess of $400 or $500 to upgrade the computers in my own home. This is most definitely a conspiracy between Microsoft and the computer vendors since software is no longer pushing the computer hardware over the last several years. I will find another product, whether it be Linux based or Mac based or whatever operating system I can have installed on my phone that is not microsoft. I will not support microsoft and their products. They are getting dangerously closed to being considered a monoply since by not having their OS on my system I am limited to what software I can use. Probably just will take someone with enough financial backing to go there as they have in other countries. Good news is by going away from them for my families OS I won't be feeling the need to buy their other software.

 

[Guest]

I was looking forward to getting all 3 of my PCs on the same OS. XP lives on!

 

[radguy]

[citation][nom]zelog[/nom]Eh, did you try, like, maybe, microsoft.com?By the way... family pack is still available in the UK,http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/ [...] ck-Upgrade[/citation]

I went to microsoft right after newegg and amazon. I don't live in the UK so that doesn't help. Pretty much the best deal I have seen was 200+ since I finally decided to buy. I think I was a couple days late for microsofts website from what other info I have found.
With the Student version Micrsoft said its good for only till Jan 3. In June or July 2 week preorder was only good for 2 weeks. I read a lot of hardware info I don't remember anything about this being a limited time offer or at least not with a set date given.
I think there are a lot of us where october november is kind of a bad time to be messing with family pcs but would have upgraded over the holidays. So microsoft is missing out on a bunch of sales but probably doesn't care cause the OS is selling so well anyway.

 

[ravewulf]

lol, Focus on the Family. That group is FAIL.


But yeah, Microsoft should have kept the family pack. It just makes sense. What family is going to splurge on multiple copies of Windows? Better to offer a discounted family pack as a permanent option.

 

[dtemple]

This really stinks, I was all set to get the family pack for my laptop, desktop, and my parents' desktop. Looks like the laptop is staying on Vista, and both desktops are staying on XP.
And, YES you can use an UPGRADE license to go from XP to Win7, you just won't be able to perform an in-place upgrade. It will wipe everything when you install it, but an upgrade license will work going from a legally activated copy of XP to Win7. I know, because my neighbor bought the family pack for his 3 desktops (him and his two kids) and they were ALL XP before the upgrade.

 

[joshthor]

im not super suprised. im a microsoft vendor at my local air force base and i sold every copy of the family pack we had in 2 the 2 days after the release. we havent gotten any back since then.

 

[buwish]

Fools. They could easily attract more and new customers by keeping the family pack thing going for another year or so.

 

[LaughALot]

Pure Crap, I have the MSDN subscription so I've got my boxes covered, but speaking as a consumer this offer should have been available at least through the holidays!

Seven is really nothing more than a Vista bug fix so Vista users should be getting it for free, along with an apology from Microsoft for f**king them for almost three years.

 

[jacobdrj]

Microsoft: 1 step forward, 2 steps back.
WTH M$?

 

[mitch074]

Well, I guess I'll just stay on Linux.

 

[rean24]

They can make more money from many single copy rather then 1 combined family pack...

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]Kl2amer[/nom]Nice job Microsoft. ~ I will not support microsoft and their products. They are getting dangerously closed to being considered a monoply since by not having their OS on my system I am limited to what software I can use.[/citation]

Er... Microsoft *is* a monopoly. They control over 90% of the desktop computer market. Hence, they can sell vista / whatever for $100~300. While Linux is free or $30~60 with support or Apple sells their OS for $30~50.

But hey, MS is becoming their own worst enemy in a way... Other than business who need to have MS-Office compatibility (yet Have fun having Office2003 open Office 2007 files, etc) - what does a home user need to have a Windows PC for?

Games? - With PC games dying with top titles going to PS3 & xbox360 (even microsoft title games) why do we need windows for?

Office Suite? - Open Office is still not up to Office 2003 standards, but its price of $0 helps. Also, Open Office has no complicated license issues and is cross compatible with the big 3 OSes and then some. OO still has more features than most people need.

Web browsing? Opera, Firefox, Chrome... available for Mac and Linux.

So whats left is Adobe products, Intuit Products for general productivity. MS would never come out with a version of MS-Office for Linux... unless Linux somehow had 10~15% of the desktop market and growing.

So yeah, there is less and less reasons to buy Windows, thanks to Microsoft. But Macintosh has their own stupid issues.

 

[belardo]

Hey Microfart!

If you remember my posts about Win7 and planning on changing my 3 Win7RC PCs into Win7 final. I have an update for you.

I was going to buy the family pack around Feb, when I can afford it. Because getting Christmas presents (toys) for the family is more important than the OS. And spending $330+ (with tax $360) is a very hard pill to swallow. I and others THOUGHT you guys figured things out a bit by selling MS-Office Family packs for about $100. $250+ for MS-office hurts, but $30~40 per license for home use is very affordable, but as we see, the CEO and whatever execs in Microsoft show their stupidity.

I am SO piss and WILL not be upgrading my PCs.
In fact, less than 24hrs of reading this article I've prepping my computers to wipe off Win7rc and re-install XP.
Why? Because I won't be installing Windows7 on my computers... so I might as well get it over with.

This won't take too long, just need to copy my data to my backup drive - quick reformat C:, install XP and the few Apps I need. I'll be back in business rather quickly.

Win7 has some nice neat-O features. I will easily recommend it over a vista box any day. But in the end, Windows7 hasn't improved my
productivity. Some software works better with Win7, others don't work at all. The transparency of the desktop is still badly done (maybe fixed in Win8) in which the Active Window should have NO transparency and different color options over the others. Otherwise, its very difficult to tell one from the other. Win7 is easily better than Vista. It installs very fast and does many things very well.

At the end of the day, XP on my desktop will still get the job done just as fast... and $110~160 (per computer) cheaper.

Eat it, Microsoft.

 

[Executor_]

I haven't paid for a copy of Windows since Windows 95. In exchange for free copies of the latest versions of Windows, Office, and Visual Studio, I actively oppose Linux and Macs. I consider it win-win for me and Microsoft.

 

[belardo]

I'm sure Microsoft would gladly give you a hand-job for your support!

- - - -

Well, we can be sure Microsoft were going to expect some pissed off people. Their bean counters calculated their profit and losses from disappointed and angered users vs profits. profits win.

So its business as usual from the monopoly known as Microsoft.

 

[Guest]

Well, I'm in the same boat as MAY others: We have 2-XP systems and 3 Vista systems in the house, or should I say HAD...

I loaded Ubuntu on 1 of the Vista and 1 of the XP systems last weekend, and have been using Open Office since Saturday. It's not perfect, but there is no way that I can afford to spend $620 to upgrade the base operating system, THEN another fortune for office productivity suites, and the upgrades for the anti-virus packages!

In the desktop and "office productivity" environment, Microsoft **IS** a monopoly and should be treated as such. This is ONE time that the government (growl!!) SHOULD step in.

 

[belardo]

I have removed Win7RC off my computers.

Installed WindowsXP back on them... since my plans for going to Win7 are no longer there, why continue to use Win7?