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?
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…
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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.