Steve Ballmer: Be grateful that you can downgrade from Vista to XP
by Nicholas Deleon on June 4, 2008

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that consumers should be happy that they have the choice to downgrade from Vista to XP. (Remember, XP retail sales are set to end on June 30.) “I don’t know how you can do better than getting both,” says Ballmer, no doubt pained by all the reports that Vista isn’t so hot (to put it lightly), and that companies like Dell let consumers pick XP instead of Vista at checkout.

Even worse? Some companies are planning to skip Vista altogether, and will migrate to Windows 7 when it comes out next year.

The wow starts when?

Comments

And yet aside from the UAC bull crap I’ve never had any problems, unless Vista is the cause of my computer hanging at the desktop on some rather seldom boots, requiring a dirty boot. Oh noes! My company plans on rolling out Vista firm wide. I think most people just don’t like the change, which I didn’t either at first. That or they hate Microsoft. So do I though, but until MS goes down in a ball of pure flame they have the most of the market.

 

The WOW starts at checkout when they tell you to pick XP ! “Wow… they f***ed up that bad?”… or at Ballmer’s office: “WOW… we spent x zillion dollars on our new os and all we got was a windows Time Machine ? (take us back to XP please !!!)”…. ;-)

 

so is the downgrade free and how do you go about doing this?

 

I am crossing my fingers that 7 will be better then Vista, otherwise, I will probably try to skip that “upgrade” as well for 8 ;-) I hope they learned their lesson this time around.

Jon
http://woodmarvels.com - Create Unique Memories!

 

You do realize there are companies that aren’t even using XP, let alone Vista? Most companies don’t just drop everything & upgrade all their office machines with the latest OS, that’s just crazytalk. At the software company I work at we still have to support Windows 2000 b/c of this.

That said, I’m curious why those IT depts would think that their software, which won’t be tested or supported on Vista, will magically work on Windows 7. That’s some strong kool-aid!

 

I’m with Jon… I know it’s possible, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get it done. What I really need is a Vista for XP trade-in offer.

Not that Vista’s bad, just that my Vista - XP network is a disaster, my desktop’s not really grunty enough for Vista, and I still can’t get drivers for all my toys…

Probably important to admit though, apart from these pretty much self-imposed problems, Vista’s absolutely peachy!

 

This is nothing new, unless MS have now widened the range of Vista versions that they allow you to downgrade from. In June last year they published details on downgrade rights to XP Pro from OEM versions of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate. Google for ‘microsoft windows vista downgrade rights’ to download the PDF.

 

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