Microsoft is gearing up to introduce the evolution of the Windows Vista Family Pack, but this time around with Windows 7 as “la piece de resistance.” The Redmond company is completely mum on the subject, but Microsoft is notorious for managing to find a way to shoot itself in the foot. And the details on Windows 7 Family Pack leaked in the wild are courtesy of the software giant, which made sure to update the End User License Agreements of pre-RTM copies of the operating system ahead of making public any information related to the Family Pack for the next iteration of the Windows client.

In the EULA for the more recent leaked copies of Windows 7, under the 2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS section users will be able to read: “b. Family Pack. If you are a “Qualified Family Pack User”, you may install one copy of the software marked as “Family Pack” on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there. Those computers are the “licensed computers” and are subject to these license terms. If you do not know whether you are a Qualified Family Pack User, visit go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=141399 or contact the Microsoft affiliate serving your country,” according to KristanKenney.

Some of you might still remember this like it was yesterday. At the start of 2007, the availability of Windows Vista brought with it the Family Pack discounts for the platform. The deal was simple enough. The marketing program allowed customers that bought a retail copy of Windows Vista Ultimate to buy two additional upgrade editions of Home Premium at promotional prices. It appears now that Microsoft will do the same with Windows 7.

However, with Windows 7 the Family Pack program appears to no longer be associated with the high-end edition of the operating system. Instead, the EULA paragraph cited above is extracted from the user rights for the Home Premium SKU of Windows 7. At the time of this article Microsoft has failed to offer any confirmation to support the validity of the Windows 7 Family Pack promotion.

Concomitantly with the unveiling of the pricing for Windows 7, Microsoft also introduced the first round of discounts associated with the product. Customers in select markets around the world are still able to pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional for $99.99. However, Microsoft might have additional aces up its sleeve as far as Windows 7 discounts go.