Microsoft is simplifying the processes via which its PC-maker partners will be able to provide “downgrade” rights from Windows Vista to Windows XP for their customers. Microsoft will implement the first of the policy changes for its Gold Certified (top-tier) OEM partners within the next couple of weeks. The company will streamline downgrade-rights policies and procedures for the broader channel somewhat later, said John Ball, general manager of Microsoft’s U.S. Systems Group. Under current licensing terms, Microsoft allows customers buying PCs preloaded with Windows Vista Ultimate and Vista Business to roll back to Windows XP until they are ready to make the move to Vista. For OEMs, the process via which these rights can be activated has been quite cumbersome, Ball acknowledged.
Under the current rules, OEMs must call about and file for each and every machine the license keys required to downgrade from Vista to XP. But Microsoft is planning to move to a new policy which will allow its top 170 OEM partners to submit these keys online for groups of machines, which will save them time and reduce complexity, Ball said. Microsoft is working on ways to allow the rest of the channel to take advantage of these simplified downgrade procedures, but is still in the midst of hashing out the details, Ball said. He didn’t have a timetable for when Microsoft will make its more liberal downgrade-rights policies available to the rest of its PC partners.
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News source: Mary Jo Foley's Blog
Under the current rules, OEMs must call about and file for each and every machine the license keys required to downgrade from Vista to XP. But Microsoft is planning to move to a new policy which will allow its top 170 OEM partners to submit these keys online for groups of machines, which will save them time and reduce complexity, Ball said. Microsoft is working on ways to allow the rest of the channel to take advantage of these simplified downgrade procedures, but is still in the midst of hashing out the details, Ball said. He didn’t have a timetable for when Microsoft will make its more liberal downgrade-rights policies available to the rest of its PC partners.
View: Full Story News source: Mary Jo Foley's Blog
Or better yet, what about us people that have bought a PC with an expired Vista upgrade package (that has expired). Only reason I never got Vista is because I beta tested it and found it to be very buggy all the time.
Thats a contradictive statement.
Keyword here: BETA
You can buy a computer without the OS, such as Dell's current offering Linux instead of windows.
... also some companies will give you a 'refund' to have the operating system removed from your computer. There are a lot of options, you just have spend some time looking.
you've obviously never used windows ME xD
Thats a contradictive statement.
Keyword here: BETA
You don't get it, do you? Beta means feature complete and its role is to be tested for bugs. Of course some thing may not work in betas, but in Vista a LOT of stuff didn't work correctly, even in last RC and now in RTM...and that's what aclarke_31 is talking about, that's what every pre-release report was talking about, but no one listened. Vista that Microsoft put out as "beta" should be "alpha" and tested/fixed some more...but they had a deadline to catch. No need to defend your favourite OS for any cost and for any argument, that's really lame and shows what a fanboy you are...try using Vista for more serious stuff, not just surfing and downloading pr0n.
Thats a contradictive statement.
Keyword here: BETA
You don't get it, do you? Beta means feature complete and its role is to be tested for bugs. Of course some thing may not work in betas, but in Vista a LOT of stuff didn't work correctly, even in last RC and now in RTM...and that's what aclarke_31 is talking about, that's what every pre-release report was talking about, but no one listened. Vista that Microsoft put out as "beta" should be "alpha" and tested/fixed some more...but they had a deadline to catch. No need to defend your favourite OS for any cost and for any argument, that's really lame and shows what a fanboy you are...try using Vista for more serious stuff, not just surfing and downloading pr0n.
but vista wasn't feature complete in beta... it wasn't feature complete till the 2nd beta! and yet in beta 3 they where still changing features...
I'll assume by Beta 3 you mean RC1, because one of my biggest complaints about Vista was that there was no B3. My only experiences with RTM have been installing it on other people's computers, and that's been more than painful enough for me.
I beta tested all to RC2, and of course in betas I expected there to be bugs - but not bugs as widespread and obvious as they were, and not all the way through to release candidates.
Sadly, as is true of so many things, Vista is not the OS it could have been: partly due to some bad design decisions earlier on, and partly due to the massive rush to get it out the door...
Thats a contradictive statement.
Keyword here: BETA
In reality all software is Beta untill it's life for support and patches have ended
Thats a contradictive statement.
Keyword here: BETA
You don't get it, do you? Beta means feature complete and its role is to be tested for bugs. Of course some thing may not work in betas, but in Vista a LOT of stuff didn't work correctly, even in last RC and now in RTM...and that's what aclarke_31 is talking about, that's what every pre-release report was talking about, but no one listened. Vista that Microsoft put out as "beta" should be "alpha" and tested/fixed some more...but they had a deadline to catch. No need to defend your favourite OS for any cost and for any argument, that's really lame and shows what a fanboy you are...try using Vista for more serious stuff, not just surfing and downloading pr0n.
but vista wasn't feature complete in beta... it wasn't feature complete till the 2nd beta! and yet in beta 3 they where still changing features...
Lol...I'm a Windows XP user. Only tried Vista now and then on other people's machines. Nice useless comeback though
Its not so much people being Vista haters, its because Vista was obviously released way before it was ready. Vista currently has received around about 1000 critical updates since its official retail release. Although cosmetically its a very nice OS, its apparent from all technical reports and discussions, Vista is simply suffering from a lack of thorough testing before its final release. I'd advise anyone thinking of migrating to Vista to wait until Service Pack 1 arrives and then slipstream it, format your HD and re-install with a nice fresh Vista SP1 install.
Its not so much people being Vista haters, its because Vista was obviously released way before it was ready. Vista currently has received around about 1000 critical updates since its official retail release. Although cosmetically its a very nice OS, its apparent from all technical reports and discussions, Vista is simply suffering from a lack of thorough testing before its final release. I'd advise anyone thinking of migrating to Vista to wait until Service Pack 1 arrives and then slipstream it, format your HD and re-install with a nice fresh Vista SP1 install.
Where do you get this number of 1000? In WSUS I only show 22 for Vista Core / Security. Now if you tack in Office and other MS products you do get alot bigger number but not 1000. If you can't hack lack of backwords compatability im sorry. This is ground work for the next few generations of OS's. Think of Vista as what 95 was in a way. Theres more backend changes then frontend.
Most of the problems with programs are do to the fact that MS locked down security. Sloppy programers. Take Intuit and Quickbooks. Quickbooks 2007 is the first version sence Quickbooks 95 that didn't use HKLM. Version before this needed Users in a domain setup to have local power user access. No one should ever need that group level. Unless maybe you have a help desk team that remotes into machines and needs to update some software or something. UAC pops up alot because programers aren't doing the right things. If the program takes on good practices you won't see UAC all the time. People need to learn how to code. Also I love the fact that these companies that program the crap software like Intuit won't update there old programs. If the system requirements didn't say Vista at time of release they have no need to go back and give it. Get over it and buy new software that dose support Vista. Take apple, why did it take them so long to get iTunes working on Vista. They had almost 3 years of CTP to playwith it? Took 2 months after public release. Give me a break. These companies just don't want to rewrite all there crap DLL's all over again.
You can install XP video drivers on Vista. It has full support for XDDM Drivers. Things like the entire DWM (And Aero) won't work, but you can do it. The backwards compatibility is there.
The fact is. They had the break things with regards to privledges. No way around it: Things had to be broken, or Windows might continue it's legacy as an unsecure OS.
And "problems installing your nVidia card", well, if nVidia can't write an installer that works.....
You can install XP video drivers on Vista. It has full support for XDDM Drivers. Things like the entire DWM (And Aero) won't work, but you can do it. The backwards compatibility is there.
The fact is. They had the break things with regards to privledges. No way around it: Things had to be broken, or Windows might continue it's legacy as an unsecure OS.
And "problems installing your nVidia card", well, if nVidia can't write an installer that works.....
there's about 1,000 KB articles for vista... not all are bugs though! a lot are how do you do this or that...
Its not so much people being Vista haters, its because Vista was obviously released way before it was ready. Vista currently has received around about 1000 critical updates since its official retail release. Although cosmetically its a very nice OS, its apparent from all technical reports and discussions, Vista is simply suffering from a lack of thorough testing before its final release. I'd advise anyone thinking of migrating to Vista to wait until Service Pack 1 arrives and then slipstream it, format your HD and re-install with a nice fresh Vista SP1 install.
15 "important" updates...moron
How do you know? Did you count them? Did Microsoft release a press statement I didnt see? Stop spewing crap.
Umm you really might want to update your WSUS server, mine is showing about 1500 when i do a search for vista updates, it deos not matter if they are core/security or just bug fixes, an updates an update which is only released cause it has issues.
Had it installed on 2 of my systems just last week. Only took 2 days to realize what a piece of crap it is. Heck, half of MS's own stuff doesn't work correctly in it yet. Already have both of those sytems reverted back to XP Pro.
I've already posted it several times, but now I see there are some people that have come to their senses and realize MS rushed this release, even though it was delayed so many times. Can't beleive for a minute they would release such a worthless, untested POS!!
But, then again, they knew they had so many "have to keep up with the Jones'" type people out there that would be scarfing up this crap, it didn't matter to them at all.
Had it installed on 2 of my systems just last week. Only took 2 days to realize what a piece of crap it is. Heck, half of MS's own stuff doesn't work correctly in it yet. Already have both of those sytems reverted back to XP Pro.
I've already posted it several times, but now I see there are some people that have come to their senses and realize MS rushed this release, even though it was delayed so many times. Can't beleive for a minute they would release such a worthless, untested POS!!
But, then again, they knew they had so many "have to keep up with the Jones'" type people out there that would be scarfing up this crap, it didn't matter to them at all.
Wow, if you really believe the bull**** you just typed up, then my friend, you really know nothing about the computing industry or customer wants/needs. Same **** was said for XP for months and months after it's release, then where did everyone end up going? Straight to XP. You're a follower, so just live with it.
BTW, they have offered downgrading for their OSs for several years now, so this is nothing new.
Idiot.
BTW, they have offered downgrading for their OSs for several years now, so this is nothing new.
Idiot.
umm, i think you are a little confused, the whole industry is a follower, it is how stuff works, a few "bleeding edge" users will upgrade to the latest so they can say they have the latest, everyone else will wait until the "early adopters" find all the problems adn they get fixed. every IT guy i know in the industry is waiting for SP1 so i really fail to see where you understand what you are talking about
to quote you
"Idiot"
I don't want windows preloading crap into ram, i don't want windows wasting my computing power deciding what i want o do. also i don't want it indexing my entire HDD, so this needs to be tweaked before i will be happy with it. and 2 dyas to index is ridiculous. i have played with it enough to know not to wasate my time getting it all working how i want it.
I don't want to have to buy Vista just to play PC games when the same hardware can be used in XP. Not to mention that DX10 could be ported to XP minus the multitasking functionality. Don't tell me Microsoft said it's impossible, MICROSOFT IS LYING.
I think that's what is bugging most people here. Other than games, there's nothing I need or want the hassle of Vista for. There's supposedly a new MS OS due in 2009, maybe that will be worth upgrading to.
I don't want to have to buy Vista just to play PC games when the same hardware can be used in XP. Not to mention that DX10 could be ported to XP minus the multitasking functionality. Don't tell me Microsoft said it's impossible, MICROSOFT IS LYING.
I think that's what is bugging most people here. Other than games, there's nothing I need or want the hassle of Vista for. There's supposedly a new MS OS due in 2009, maybe that will be worth upgrading to.
Wow a corporation lying? Never in history.
Get outta here ya tosser.
I don't want to have to buy Vista just to play PC games when the same hardware can be used in XP. Not to mention that DX10 could be ported to XP minus the multitasking functionality. Don't tell me Microsoft said it's impossible, MICROSOFT IS LYING.
I think that's what is bugging most people here. Other than games, there's nothing I need or want the hassle of Vista for. There's supposedly a new MS OS due in 2009, maybe that will be worth upgrading to.
i don't get why it's better for games, framerate with XP 120 frameratewith vista 60. (this is on a pretty high end machine)
I had Vista for 40days now and now I am going to buy a legal copy of XP as well just beocuse I can not work in Vista anymore... to many bugs.. I agree most of the bugs are coused by third party softwares/drivers...
1. my nivids 7900GS doesnt works smoothly on Vista...
2. I moved all the folder in 'user folder' like links documents fav etc to my second drive and found a bug most programs like nero acdsee etc make the folder in "my documents' (which has been default for so long) so the funny thin happens in my user folder on my desktop when I go into it I see two documents folders
3. Vista is instable...
many of you might not agree with me, but that is my point of view about Vista and I think I will reinstall Vista after a year or so... after SP1 I think...
need to know something... i am getting XP OEM today I have Vista ULT OEM installed, if I install XP now and then reinstall Vista after a year or so will Vista work? (considering I will have the same PC then) and will I be able to install Office 22007 on XP which I have already instaled and unlocked on Vista?
Sorry if I went offtopic...
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