Microsoft most likely is offering this deal to get as many customers switched over to Windows 7 as possible, especially after the widely dreaded Windows Vista. In addition, with Apple selling its latest iteration, Snow Leopard, for just $30, this is a great idea. If you don’t know if your machine supports Windows 7, try running Upgrade Advisor, which will check your system configuration and hopefully give you some good news. To get your copy for $30, just click on the links below!

Links: Win741.com | Windows 7 Student Discount

And that’s not all, if your field of study is any type of technical or engineering majors, you’re eligible for an even better deal. If you sign up with IEEE for a $30 membership, which will last for the rest of the year, you will have access to tons of Microsoft software including Windows 7 Professional x64. (That’s the full edition! Not upgrade version from the deal above.) Signing up as a student using your school’s ‘.edu’ email address and selecting your school from the selector. After about a week, you’ll get an email from MSDNAA giving you a username and password to access and download Windows 7.

Links: IEEE.org Register [via SlickDeals]

Both deals are independent of each other. I’ve personally tried the 2nd option, the IEEE discount, as a student at UC Davis and it worked perfectly. I’ve also purchased Office 2007 through the Ultimate Steal and it worked perfectly. I haven’t had a reason to try the Win741 deal since I already am running Windows 7, but Microsoft officially tweeted about it, so it should be completely safe.

Update 10.05.09: Some of you had emailed in notifying us that Windows 7 was removed from the IEEE MSDNAA list. I took a look into it and it was indeed removed. I decided to shoot an email to IEEE, and here’s there official response:

Microsoft has removed Windows 7 temporarily from this benefit. Management are currently having discussions on the direction they will take with this offer. We regret the inconvenience and will let you know Microsoft’s decision on restoring Windows 7 in this offer for students pursuing technical studies. – Denise Christian, Senior Customer Service Representative, IEEE Computer Society

So at this time, there is no information as to whether it will be put back up anytime soon. For now you folks will have to stick to getting Windows 7 home Premium through the Win711 offer.

About three days ago, Microsoft announced a very unusual deal for students on Office 2007. Starting on September 20th, Any student with a valid “.edu” e-mail address will have the opportunity to purchase Office Ultimate 2007 for just $60. Offer ends in April 2008. For those of you thinking this is probably just another cut down version such as Home & Student Edition ($100), which has only the basic for processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications, WRONG! The downloadable Office Ulitmate 2007 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Groove, and InfoPath! Although you probably won’t be using half those applications, we recommend going with this offer.

If you wish to grab this offer it’s available on TheUlimateSteal.com. As for those of you who wish to use an alternative to avoid even the $60, we would recommend OpenOffice which includes just about all the programs you would ever need and is completely open source, therefore free.

P.S. Don’t try lying to get this offer since Microsoft will charge the full $679 price if your student enrollment fails to validate!

Links: TheUtlimateSteal | Compare Office 2007 Editions