In a reversal of its earlier stance, Microsoft officials confirmed that customers will be able to downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows XP for a year and a half after the new system ships, or until the first Service Pack drops — whichever comes first.
While some industry observers the modified downgrade policy is a change for the better, at least one analyst says Microsoft still hasn’t enough to provide options for enterprises.
This industry observer says Microsoft simply hasn’t a clue!
The downgrade option is also not available to all Windows 7 users: Downgrade rights apply to purchasers of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate, so the option isn’t available to customers who buy Windows 7 Home Premium.
Additionally, customers who have either Software Assurance subscriptions or Enterprise Agreements with Microsoft can continue to get the downgrade as long as they want.
Confused, yet?
“Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate customers will have the option to downgrade to Windows XP Professional from PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack (SP), whichever is sooner and if an SP is developed,” a Microsoft spokesperson told InternetNews.com in an e-mail.
Understand that, OK?
@14
The 10USD upgrade price to 3.0 is only for iPod Touch users. iPhone users get the 3.0 upgrade for free.
I wonder how long the industry will tolerate picoflaccid continually coming out with products so bad that people will pay more to downgrade to the older less crappy version.
I have not used either Xista or 7, so really can’t say how they are. But, people are willing to pay the higher price to be able to downgrade, so …
17, To a flaw you you use examples that are nowhere near being technologically volatile as the electronics or software industries.
The electronics industry as you should already know improves itself every 12 to 24 months in big ways. Cars and Airplanes don’t make those kind of milestones in the same window of time.
Aerodynamics as we understand it hasn’t really changed much in the way we make airplanes or cars for that matter for the past several decades. You don’t get the technological leaps in these industries like you do in the electronic industries. Why is the 787 sooooooooooo “radically” different? It’s an airplane that gets most of its fuel efficiency from reducing a lot of dead weight through the use of carbon fiber. Technologically speaking this was about the only approach any plane maker (or car maker for that matter) can make in improving something like fuel efficiency.
Theone’s point was that competition is the reason why Microsoft needs to continually release a product every handful of years. If you take out the competition and volatility out of the electronics and software equation, sure we can run on Windows XP for the next 20 or so years.
Be that as it may, you were probably better off questioning how much more productive you could possibly be running MS Office 2007 versus MS Office 2003. Last time I checked, I produce documents on my Office 2003 as effectively as I could on Office 2007. But you could also make the same points with newer versions of OpenOffice. People don’t gripe so much about them given that they’re free.
I don’t think it is reasonable to expect Microsoft to continue selling Windows XP. At some point they need to focus on the newer versions and not have to worry about bugs on an aging version of its product. I think MS should cut off XP when Windows 7 is released, and focus on allowing users to buy the current and previous versions.
The other problem is that the longer Microsoft lets users stay on old versions of Windows the harder it will be for those users to upgrade later. Novell did this, allowing customers to stay on old versions for so long that the cost of upgrading to newer versions in time and money was so great users just went to Windows.
I work for a large fortune 200 company, we’re still running IE 6 and Windows XP. Its horrible the security risk we are still running IE 6 and Windows XP. Time to move into the next decade.
why stop at XP? let’s downgrade to ME or Win98… and if this is a downgrade shouldn’t it be a downgrade to Vista???
#17
As #23 pointed out your examples are not exactly in the same industry. Competition is much healthier and fast pace where software is concern.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to stay with XP myself. However, if there is no support in the near future it will eventually degrade. It is even more enticing for hackers to use XP due to the amount of users out there and to users like yourself. Then consider the business/corporate world. I don’t think it would be a pretty sight to imagine
Now Vista is not perfect and I absolutely hate it even after several attempts to use it. Windows7 is much like Vista or rather Vista should have been what Windows7 is shaping up to be. It’ll take time for it to stabilize to a certain point but you will have the support still. Sure you don’t have to switch but eventually you’ll be left behind in the dust for whatever service or productivity you’re using your PC for.
Embrace the change. If it sucks gripe and bitch about it like some of us did with Vista and you might get a better product The griping and bitching includes not supporting or buying the product as well hehe
Vista SP1 is a rock solid OS, Windows 7 is better. I have a hard time with XP these days since it feels like using Win95 in comparison. I used Vista on a Toshiba with integrated video and it flew on 2GB of RAM. Windows 7 is like a spit polished Vista. Why would anyone want to use XP for home use is beyond me.
# 27 Aaron_W said, “Why would anyone want to use XP for home use is beyond me.”
Because it works as well or better than Vista with less hardware resources? Probably why Vista failed in the enterprise…
We – the company I work for – just went through a week long engagement with Microsoft and Sogeti to determine what it would take to upgrade our environment from XP to Windows 7. The amount of work to repackage and re-verify all of our applications would be incredible. From what I hear support for XP in the form of patches etc… completely runs out in 2014. Even calculating the cost of moving to Windows 7 is no easy task.
If you are an individual or a small shop with a few apps that stop working or being deployable you can overcome that. If you are a large shop say health care with over 30K workstations and suddenly your EMR or cardio imaging has problems it’s a completely different story.
#28
Can’t comment on Vista since I left the camp long ago. But for Windows7 I’m sure you be surprise and happy. Have you given it a shot yet? I have the RC 7100 running on various Desktops and laptops and everything installed and ran fine on the get go. Was a shocker even to me.
I’ve also converted 2 laptops crawling with Vista Premium and they’re now running smoothly WITH Aero on integrated graphics O.o Overall it’s more polished than Vista and it should be a consideration for an XP upgrade imo.
Check it out, you just might like it. If not, well…ditch it like I’ve ditched Vista
Never hurts to try for yourself instead of having others tell you right 
#30 Some of my friends who are tech journalists have been keeping me updated. From their testing it seems much better than Vista. Sounds like you are having similar experience. Thanks for the info.
I worked as a contractor for Queensland Health, it took them 2 years, that’s right 2 years, to roll out SP2 for XP, I am not kidding.
Can you imagine how long it will take them to upgrade to a different OS? Allowing them to run XP stops them from saying “fuck it, lets migrate everything to Linux.”
Smart move MS, fuckers.
Microsoft is including the ability to run XP from inside Windows 7 in a virtual machine to buyers of the Win 7 Pro, Enterprise, or Ultimate. If I understand Paul Thurrott correctly, MS is giving buyers of any of those 3 versions their own copy of XP to run as a VM. Done rite, businesses would love this because they would get to run the latest OS and still keep using legacy applications.
Here’s a link to his description
http://winsupersite.com/win7/xp_mode_preview.asp
I wish MS would take a page from Apple’s book and offer a cheap upgrade. I have over 300 XP workstations at work, a cheap upgrade would be a partial incentive to move to win7.
I’m not confused. Do what you’re told.
See how easy that was? Just like having a Mac.
I hope to run Win XP for ever! It is the best OS Microsoft will ever make…
# 23 Guyver said, on June 19th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Cars and Airplanes don’t make those kind of milestones in the same window of time.
Aerodynamics as we understand it hasn’t really changed much…
===============================================
This is the most dumb-assed thing I’ve heard all week. Aerodynamics evolves constantly. New airfoils are constantly being improved every day. You must be a public school teacher, nobody else would be as fatuously clueless.
There are a number of reasons to move from XP to Windows 7 for somewhat older PC users. As an example, Windows 7 includes built-in DVD player support and solid CODECs for h.264 and h.264 AVC, AAC (not FairPlay protected), and numerous others. No need to buy a seperate DVD player program or install CODEC packs that may or may not include malware, or just be poorly written/compiled (see early demuxer add-ins for example). Simplified networking, including better support and handling of WiFi. All of these kinds of things require third party software addons to work under Windows XP. So if you look at it in regards to feature products, Windows 7 will be worth it compared to spending another few hundred dollars buying seperate software that may not work together. I have used Windows 7 and will be (based on price) buying licenses for a good number of my home machines to switch out from Windows 2000, XP, and upgrade from Vista. I will still keep using my linux file servers and development boxes, but my primary and work machines will be moved over once the final version hits stores on October 22nd.
# 38 DataCabbitKSW said, “There are a number of reasons to move from XP to Windows 7 for somewhat older PC users.”
Better pile on the RAM.