Irtehpasty...Do Not Read this
Microsoft is letting Windows XP Professional users keep their downgrade rights for the lifecycle of Windows 7. Downgrade rights would ordinarily have ended on July 12 with the availability of Windows 7 SP1 beta.
Windows XP has been given a reprieve by Microsoft—at least, when it comes to users’ ability to downgrade to the popular-but-aging operating system. Originally slated to terminate within 18 months of Windows 7’s general release, or the availability of Windows 7 SP1—the latter of which happened July 12, at least in beta—end-user downgrade rights for Windows XP have now been extended.
The Windows 7 SP1 beta features only minor fixes, the majority of them already available through Windows Update.
“Our business customers have told us that removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing,” Brandon LeBlanc, a spokesperson for Microsoft, wrote in a July 12 posting on The Windows Blog, “given the rights change would be made for new PCs preinstalled with Windows 7 and managing a hybrid environment with PCs that have different end-user rights based on date of purchase would be challenging to track.”
In order to compensate for that, Microsoft will apparently extend downgrade rights for Windows XP professional beyond the Windows 7 SP1 milestone, to throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle.
“The OEM versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate will continue to include downgrade rights to similar versions of Windows Vista and Windows XP Professional,” LeBlanc wrote. “Going forward, businesses can continue to purchase new PCs and utilize end user downgrade rights to Windows XP or Windows Vista until they are ready to use Windows 7.”
That doesn’t stop the bell tolling for Windows XP, however. Support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 ends July 12, necessitating an upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 3 for anyone wanting to stay with the platform instead of upgrading. And despite its longstanding position as a favored operating system among both customers and the enterprise, extended support for Windows XP Service Pack 3 will still end in April 2014, with no updates or patches available after that point.
What’s more—and die-hard XP fans, this is the part where you pull out your handkerchiefs and proceed to weep—research firm Gartner has suggested that a generalized lack of XP support from independent software vendors (ISVs) will start around the end of 2011, with a support “XP danger zone” developing at the end of 2012.
Microsoft has been using its Worldwide Partner Conference, which kicked off in Washington, D.C. July 12, to promote Windows 7. In encouraging any recalcitrant attendees to upgrade to its newest operating system, Microsoft executives have repeatedly insisted that Windows XP was built in a bygone era, and therefore a relic increasingly unable to handle today’s changed, cloud-centric tech landscape.
