Shayla Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 With 74% of business PCs running XP, the move is more proof that it's the OS that won't die Computerworld - Just a day before Microsoft drops support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the company announced on Monday that people running some versions of Windows 7 can "downgrade" to the aged operating system for up to 10 years. The move is highly unusual. In the past, Microsoft has terminated downgrade rights -- which let customers replace a newer version of Windows with an older edition without paying for two copies -- within months of introducing a new OS. While few consumers may want to downgrade from Windows 7 to XP -- unlike when many mutinied against Vista three years ago -- businesses often want to standardize on a single operating system to simplify machine management. Monday's announcement was the second Windows XP downgrade rights extension. Microsoft originally limited Windows 7-to-Windows XP downgrades to six months after Windows 7's release, but backtracked in June 2009 after an analyst with Gartner Research called the plan a "real mess." Full article @ Computerworld Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon H Supervisor Posted July 13, 2010 Supervisor Share Posted July 13, 2010 seriously WHY?!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inklin Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Are they absolutely stark raving NUTS? :blink: It will be almost 20 years old by 2020, any business still wanting to downgrade to it by then deserves to die! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeEDay Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 I can't put xp in my system. Every time I try I get hardware bsods .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosidius Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 So in 2020 people can still use a 19 year old operating system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron Olive Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 STOP IT MICROSOFT!, JUST LET IT DIE :angry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 The move surprises me but I think it makes sense, MS doesn't want big businesses to even have the chance of considering switching OS...and if keeping them on WinXP is the way to do it hten they'll do it. Many MANY large businesses were planning to upgrade to a new OS (Win7 or something else) only because MS was going to stop issuing security update after 2014....now with this extension I'm sure lots of them will be happy To be very honest, as much as I prefer OSX to Windows, I do feel that WinXP is the PERFECT OS for general use workstations deployed across a large business edit: I know I'll get flamed by a lot of people for my comment but I stand by it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Veteran Posted July 13, 2010 Veteran Share Posted July 13, 2010 Extended support still ends in 2014 I believe. This also only applies to OEM copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost5525 Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 only thing i can think for them doing this is for the whole XP Mode thing in Windows 7/8 ....all i can think of TBH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Perhaps they could end up making more money because of this... Eventually apps will require something greater than XP for feature X, whether it is hardware or software. If you downgrade then choose to go back to 7, do you have to pay for another license? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Nope. You've paid for Windows 7, you get to use either XP or 7 (at any time, but not at once) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Extended support still ends in 2014 I believe. This also only applies to OEM copies. They're going to have to extend that support....there's NO WAY they can have millions of PCs running a highly vulnurable version of Windows while STILL selling licenses through this program Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timster Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Nope. You've paid for Windows 7, you get to use either XP or 7 (at any time, but not at once) oh, but i can use XP and Windows 7 at the same time with XP Mode inside of Windows 7 Ultimate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 oh, but i can use XP and Windows 7 at the same time with XP Mode inside of Windows 7 Ultimate Correct! And you can use it on Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise as well. I can't think of any real reason a modern computer requires XP on it (natively) now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmeunit Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Sometimes it's not about WANTING to run XP or even the ability to run XP in a VM. It's about being able to afford to outfit a whole enterprise with a new OS. I work at a school. And budgets are going down the tubes, even more than than have been the last year or two. Even at our discounted price it would cost us $10,000 which is half of what my budget is already. And on top of that, our ISP got their state budget cut and wants to raise our fee from $2800 to $7800. And it's not supposed to get any better next year. So yes we probably will be stuck with XP a lot longer than we would like to. Not to mention updated hardware to run Win7. Luckily we got some new machines this year from a government agency, or we would be even worse off. I'm thinking more about moving several machines over to SLED since it's included with our licensing through Novell. At least I could get an up-to-date, secure OS. Kids have no problems learning to use a new OS, or finding their way around generally. It's the teachers that have a hard time learning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 I'm thinking more about moving several machines over to SLED since it's included with out licensing through Novell. At least I could get an up-to-date, secure OS. Kids have no problems learning to use a new OS, or finding their way around generally. It's the teachers that have a hard time learning. This is exactly why they're extending Windows XP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenomorph Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 What the hell.. The whole "Microsoft is finally dropping XP" thing on new computers was one of the arguments I used to convince our office to drop our XP systems and look to better utilize Win7+ systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest xiphi Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Just die already! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Veteran Posted July 13, 2010 Veteran Share Posted July 13, 2010 They're going to have to extend that support....there's NO WAY they can have millions of PCs running a highly vulnurable version of Windows while STILL selling licenses through this program They're not selling licenses. They're allowing you to install XP with the license from 7. As I said, this only applies to OEM (pre-installed) copies. The article doesn't mention anything about extended support being extended further, only downgrade rights. You call the activation center and give them your Vista/7 key and they switch it to an XP key. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 They're not selling licenses. They're allowing you to install XP with the license from 7. As I said, this only applies to OEM (pre-installed) copies. The article doesn't mention anything about extended support being extended further, only downgrade rights. You call the activation center and give them your Vista/7 key and they switch it to an XP key. Right, I understand that....it just doesn't make sense that they would allow that after the extended support is over though....that would be like handing customers shotguns so they can shoot themselves in the foot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I am Reid Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Are they absolutely stark raving NUTS? :blink: It will be almost 20 years old by 2020, any business still wanting to downgrade to it by then deserves to die! well sometimes they may need a new computer, but if the software works just fine and does exactly what they need it to do then why mess with it? I work for fedex, and when I first started about 4 years ago pretty much all of their computers, that run the multi-million dollar soration in our hub which is one of the biggest in the company still used an early version of Windows to control them, they have sense been updated a few years ago to XP though with a new software package. Still do this day certain systems in the building use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Growled Member Posted July 13, 2010 Member Share Posted July 13, 2010 I'm glad Microsoft finally saw the light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazure Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 I'm glad Microsoft finally saw the light. You honestly believe that supporting an OS for nearly 20 years when there's going to be plenty of new versions of the OS well after that is... a good move? Why XP? Why not.. Windows 95! What makes XP so special, that it gets to live so long, while other ancient OS's were ok to be left behind? This whole thing is retarded. XP needs to die. Anyone who believes XP should be installed natively on MODERN HARDWARE (read: core iX cpus, 4GB+ RAM, etc) is a freakin RETARD. XP Cannot properly use all that hardware the way it's supposed to be used, and eventually there won't even be DRIVERS for new hardware on XP! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AltecXP Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Maybe they are just using this as their new Legacy system. Windows 3.1 was only dropped like 2yrs ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 Why XP? Why not.. Windows 95! What makes XP so special, that it gets to live so long, while other ancient OS's were ok to be left behind? WinXP is a great OS for plain enterprise workstations. They don't need aero or any fancy stuff do allow people to browse the web, email and create work documents. MS realized that and decided to allow them to keep using WinXP because lets face it it's better for MS to keep them on an old version of Windows than to lose them to another OS (most might end up upgrading to Win7 but not all) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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