To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft has decided to reanimate the Windows 7 Family Pack. Starting on October 3, the family pack will be once again available at participating retailers and the Microsoft Store.

The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for $149.99 in the US, and contain three Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade licenses.

Considering that one upgrade license for that operating system retails for about $110, it is a good deal, if at least two of the licenses can be put to use in a household.

And while it is a legal requirement to have a Vista or XP license on every computer in the household to upgrade it, it is not a technical one.

International users will also be able to grab a Windows 7 Family Pack starting October 22. It will be available in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, and according to Microsoft in “many other markets” as well.

In the best case, the Windows 7 Family Pack saves about $150 if the household has at least three computer systems where the operating system can be installed on. For two computers, it is still about $50 cheaper than buying the OS separately.

Still, only Windows 7 Home Premium is offered as a family pack. That should be fine for most customers, considering that the Professional and Ultimate editions cater to a business and professional audience. (interested users may look at this page for information on Windows 7 Home Basic, and how it compares to the other editions). (via Windows Team Blog)

Students eager to buy Windows 7 for this price qualify if they have a valid email address from their educational institution and if they are enrolled in coursework (proof may be required). Microsoft has setup a simple site for US and UK students to enter their email address. An email will be send to the entered email address with information if it is eligible for the reduced price.

US students can apply right away while UK students need to wait until September 30 before the form is activated on the website. It seems that the number of licenses is – again – limited which means they are served on a first come first served basis. Microsoft has intentions to provide the service to students from other countries like Germany, France, Canada or Australia as well starting from October 22 (that’s the Windows 7 release date).

It is also unclear why Microsoft is offering both Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional for the same price tag as there is virtually no reason to pick the Home Premium version which comes with less features than the professional edition (unless upgrades are an issue).

Students from various countries (including the US, UK and France) can furthermore buy a copy of Microsoft Office for $59 over at the Ultimate Steal website.

The Windows 7 upgrade editions will save the user the same amount of money. Here is a table that is outlining the prices of Windows 7 and Windows Vista editions:

The price for the Windows 7 editions with a full basic feature set range from $200 for Windows 7 Home Premium to $320 for Windows 7 Ultimate. More exciting than this is a pre-order program for Windows 7 that is offering Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional at greatly reduced prices. Users who have the intention to buy Windows 7 should make use of the pre-order program as it will make Windows 7 Home Premium available for $50 and Windows 7 Professional for $100 which means that buyers save $150 when pre-ordering Windows 7 Home Premium and $200 for Windows 7 Professional.

The price is similar in all Windows 7 launch countries. Take a look at the table below for all information about pre-order prices:

Opportunities to pre-order Windows 7 will start on June 26 for users from the United States, Canada and Japan while users from the UK, France and Germany will have to wait until July 15. The pre-order period lasts until July 11 for US and Canadian users, July 5 for Japanese users and August 14 for users from the UK, Germany and France. Pre-orders will be available in the official Microsoft store but also at selected retailers such as Amazon.

Microsoft has also revealed another interesting aspect of the launch of Windows 7 in Europe. You may have heard that Microsoft is going to offer Windows 7 without Internet Explorer in Europe. Windows 7 E will be sold exclusively in Europe and one of the side-effects is that Europeans will not be able to upgrade to Windows 7. That’s right, no Windows 7 upgrades will be sold in Europe. But that’s good news apparently as Microsoft has made the decision to sell Windows 7 full versions with the upgrade price tag in Europe.

The best time to get a legit version of Windows 7 begins tomorrow (or on July 15 if you are from Europe). Big question, will you pre-order the operating system or buy Windows 7 later? I personally think that the price is really attractive considering that you get the Home Premium edition for $50.