Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack (3-User) [Old Version]

4.3 | 758 ratings

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Last update: 07-21-2024

About this item

Install Windows 7 Home Premium on up to three PCs in your household
Windows 7 Home Premium makes it easy to create a home network and share all of your favorite photos, videos, and music--you can even watch, pause, rewind, and record TV
Make the things you do every day easier with improved desktop navigation
Start programs faster and more easily, and quickly find the documents you use most often
Easily create a home network and connect your PCs to a printer with HomeGroup

Top reviews from the United States

Derald Solomon

Windows 7 - it just works

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2012

I've only bought two Microsoft operating systems in my 30 years of using computers - Windows XP and Windows 7. This doesn't include the copy of Windows 3.1 and DOS I got with my first IBM-based PC or any other copies of Windows I got with new/used computers or otherwise. Windows XP just worked. No messing around. Windows 7 is the natural progression of Windows XP. It just works. Of course I build my own computers and I use hardware I know is reliable and has appropriate drivers, but installing this copy of Windows 7 on my computer was mostly uneventful. As it should be.

I have a dual boot Linux Mint install and Windows 7 on my Thinkpad T61 and my home built desktop. After installing Windows 7 of course my computer no longer dual boots. Easy fix - used Boot Repair CD I made, which is essentially a Linux boot disk with Boot Repair autoloaded. You can also boot any Linux distro and add the repository for Boot Repair. Boot Repair re-installed GRUB, and thus my dual booting ability.

This is the family-pack 3 user copy of Windows 7. Thus you need Windows XP (which I also legit own), Windows Vista or Windows 7 already installed. For my laptop I had an OEM copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. I bought the laptop off Ebay with the software already installed. However the OEM license was for Windows Vista, not Windows 7. Thus I could not legally keep Windows 7 on the computer. So my choice was to format and install Windows Vista (which I don't own), format and install Windows XP (which I chose not to do) or install a correct legal copy of Windows 7, which is what I did. Note that this is the UPGRADE version. And I already had Windows 7 Ultimate installed and working very nicely. I didn't want to format and reinstall Windows 7, so I performed a few work arounds in the registry to "trick" the currently installed copy of Windows 7 Ultimate into believing it was Windows 7 Home Premium. This allowed me to "upgrade" using my new copy of Windows 7 Home Premium on top of what I had. This is called an in-place upgrade. I didn't have to format or reinstall any programs. Now my laptop had a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium - no longer the Ultimate version. This is no loss since I didn't use any features of Windows 7 Ultimate. I can now activate my legal copy and have no further problems.

In order to install this upgrade on my desktop, I started from a fresh format (new SSD actually). I installed the upgrade software and DID NOT AUTOMATICALLY ACTIVATE - DID NOT TYPE IN PRODUCT REGISTRATION KEY - this is important. Uncheck the "Activate Windows Automatically" box when presented the option. "Skip" the Product Key input. Just complete the install for the upgrade. Technically you cannot activate at this point since it's the upgrade version. So.. I just reinstalled the upgrade on top of itself - this is officially supported by Microsoft. After a second install (install #1 on blank drive, install #2 on top of install #1 as an "upgrade") I can now legally activate my copy of Windows 7 by clicking on the Activate Windows link (right-click My Computer - Properties). You can then type in the Registration Key and Activate Windows - all legally.

This is the 3-user pack, so if I wanted to upgrade my wife's Windows Vista laptop, I could legally do so.

Windows 7 works just fine for me and it installed without any problems whatsoever. My previous experience with Windows 7 led me to believe that it was worth the money to own it.

Dry Creek

Good Value for Upgrading

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2012

Installed this Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade on three computers.

The easiest upgrade was a laptop that was already running Windows Vista Home Premium (32 bit). It was a direct upgrade and is running without a hitch. Boot times are a little quicker, and some larger programs (i.e. MS Office apps) load noticeably faster.

The second computer was running Windows XP Home, SP3. As noted on the packaging, this required a clean install. Your documents and some other files are safely stored in the "Windows.old" directory after installation. You can delete these later (once your reloaded archived files are verified) and free up quite a bit of disc space. The XP upgrade computer is an older eMachines that has been upgraded bit-by-bit. It now has a Pentium 4 H/T running at 2.80 GHz, 500GB S-ATA HD and a 256MB FX5200 GeForce PCI video card (that's right, no PCI-E on this MB). Maxed out at 2 GB RAM, and dedicated 2MB flash drive for Ready-Boost. The older nVidia card was not supported for Win7, but graphics were acceptable and Aero features were fully supported. I later added an EVGA GeForce6200 512MB PCI based video card, but actual WEI numbers ended up being lower since the replacement card was only 64 bit vs 128 bit transfer rate. The 3D rendering is much cleaner though. This computer was loaded with 32 bit software. So far only occasional hangs, but nothing that wouldn't recover. Boot times are about the same, and programs load at about the same speed too. So far, other than the Aero "eye candy", there was no real benefit to upgrading, other than having an OS that is currently supported by MicroSoft.

The last computer was one I built from leftover and "gimme" parts. It was running Windows Vista Home Ultimate, 64 bit. It too required a clean install, and the Windows.old directory had the saved data you might miss if you forgot to back up your files before installing. I loaded the 64 bit version on this machine as it had more than the minimum requirements for it, and the 64 bit version of Vista was running pretty well before the upgrade. So far, no major issues. MSI MB, 4 GB Corsair RAM, dedicated 2MB flash drive for Ready Boost, Intel Core 2 Duo running at 3.1 GHZ, Sapphire Radeon HD5450 PCI-E with 1GB, 500GB S-ATA HD. Boot times are only slightly improved, programs open only minimally faster. Three weeks and platform is still stable. Again, no major benefit to upgrading, and I lost Dream Scenes to boot <- but, since this caused some OS lockups, it hadn't been running for a week or so before upgrade.

Overall experience - surprisingly good, bordering on great, I guess. I was able to load the OS on each platform on the first try. Each machine was instantly recognized and registered online too. No issues with being identified as invalid or too many activations. Since the clean installs also maintained my MS Office files on the HD (in the Windows.old directory) I was able to reload the version of MS Office that was previously installed (either 2007 or 2010) without having to call MS for activation. The true test of MicroSoft's mettle came last week when Service Pack 1 hit the update queue. No problems on the first attempt. This far surpassed the mess I had to wade through when SP1 for Vista locked me into an "installing updates" loop for days. Finally was able to boot into Safe Mode and revert to a date prior to the SP1 installation. What a nightmare!

I wish that some of the older built-ins were available. In order to get a simple calendar program you have to use Windows Live Mail. That ain't gonna happen.

If you are running Windows XP, SP3 and having no problems, don't expect your life to be changed by this Operating System upgrade. If you are running Vista, you will see *some* improvement, but not a huge amount (I think that the memory leaks were addressed in an update or SP). Always run the (free) Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser before you start. Some of your currently installed programs may not be compatible (but I have some I was running under Win98 that do just fine as long as you run in proper compatibility mode). Good luck and follow the directions on the packaging. I got this 3 computer upgrade for only $118, but three days before it was on-sale for $95! Keep your eyes out for this bargain, but don't wait too long as MS has discontinued this 3PC Upgrade package.

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