Get a 3-user Windows 7 upgrade for $109.99

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.