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Get a 3-user Windows 7 upgrade for $109.99

Designed for multi-PC families, the bundle lets you upgrade three XP and/or Vista systems to Windows 7 Home Premium (32- or 64-bit). That works out to $36.66 per PC.

rickbroida
rickbroida
Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
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Rick Broida
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Upgrade three of your family's PCs on the cheap with the Windows 7 Family Pack.
Upgrade three of your family's PCs on the cheap with the Windows 7 Family Pack. Microsoft

Because I'm still digging out from last night's snOMG, here's an update of a post I wrote a few months ago.

Haven't yet upgraded your home PCs to Windows 7? No surprise there: a single upgrade license retails for $119.99, which I find outrageous for an operating system--even one as solid as Windows 7.

As you may recall, several months back Microsoft rereleased the Windows 7 Family Pack, a three-PC upgrade edition of Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit or 64-bit, your choice). The price: a much more reasonable $149.99.

If you didn't pull the trigger then, you might want to now: Amazon has the Windows 7 Family Pack for $109.99 shipped--the lowest price I've seen for this upgrade.

That works out to about $36 per PC, a much more tolerable price for upgrading your XP- or Vista-powered desktops and laptops to Windows 7.

As I mentioned previously, Vista users can just pop in the disc for an in-place upgrade, but XP systems require extra measures: there's no direct upgrade path from XP to 7.

Fortunately, there are ways around that. A utility like Laplink PC Mover Upgrade Assistant, for instance, makes in-place upgrades from XP to 7 fairly painless. It normally sells for $29.99, but Amazon has it for $19.49.

If you're a little more tech-savvy, try the new Prowess SmartMigrate utility, which turns your entire existing XP installation into a virtual operating system you can run inside Windows 7. It's free for personal use.

Bonus deal: Amazon has a new batch of $5 albums for the month of February, including the Grammy-nominated "Need You Now" (Lady Antebellum) and "The Suburbs" (Arcade Fire). My top pick: the blissful folk-pop soundtrack to "Once," which, FYI, is a little gem of a movie.