For what it’s worth, if you follow Microsoft’s ‘academic discounts’ links you end up on a page that students (college email address required) can order Home premium for $30 (download) and an option to buy a backup disk for another $13. Apparently students attending colleges which require students to connect ‘directly’ to the school’s domain are able to buy the Windows 7 Professional for $30 as well.
I had a hard time finding the link for the pro version discount and after I used it, that link only pointed to the Home Premium version so apparently the discount for the Pro has to come via the college (i.e., the school has to register with MS that it requires direct connection to its domain and then students regsitering with their school email address get the ‘right’ link.)
Home Premium does not allow users to connect directly to a domain the way that Pro and Ultimate do. Also - Pro has a feature that is intended to let users run ‘many’ older XP programs and Premium does not. In case you have any students in the family, I will include the link below. In MS FAQ page MS says that it’s an academic license but not an academic version of the software.There is a one-copy limit per student.
http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_US/DisplayHomePage?resid=ilOFSwoBAkYAAAAiq3AAAAAV&rests=1254718733974
ping
Hmmm...that has upgrade on the box too.
You can get the Student discount for Professional by clicking a link that says “I need access to my college’s network” or something like that. I guess Home edition doesn’t have that feature, so the link takes you to a page that lets you buy the Professional upgrade for $30. That’s the one I bought.