It might give some IT departments more time to upgrade their shops from XP. If the date is true, IT pros will be able to purchase new PCs with Windows 7, but downgrade to XP, for another year. Renewed questions about downgrade rights popped up after an AppleInsider story reported a leaked HP memo that read, "The Win 7 Professional to XP Pro downgrade OS will also discontinue on April 30th 2010." Microsoft would not confirm that date, according to Foley, although the company did confirm that it will be possible to downgrade to XP from Windows 7. Furthermore, Vista users are restricted to moving to XP Pro, XP Pro 圆4 or XP Tablet PC editions, a Microsoft document ( PDF) explains.
Those with other Vista editions, such as Home Premium and Home Basic, don't have those downgrade rights. The present migration scenario is from Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows XP Professional. The downgrade rights are restricted to specific OS editions. The ability to skip editions of Windows actually has been long-standing policy, as described in Microsoft's EULA, a company spokesperson explained to me. Microsoft will permit Windows 7 Professional edition downgrades to Windows XP Professional, according a report by veteran Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley published on Monday.Ī Microsoft spokesperson told Foley that downgrade rights apply to "previous versions of Windows, not just the most recent predecessor" (namely, Windows Vista). Microsoft will permit Windows 7 Professional edition downgrades to Windows XP Professional Windows 7 Will Have an XP Downgrade Option