Just a day before Microsoft reduces the support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), the company announced on Monday that people use certain versions of Windows 7 may “downgrade” to the age of the operating system for up to 10 years.
This step is highly unusual. In the past has ended Microsoft downgrade rights – which allow customers to replace the older Edition of the newer version of Windows without paying for two copies — in the months since the introduction of the new OS.
Few consumers may downgrade from Windows 7 XP – unlike many rebelled against Vista three years ago, businesses often want to standardize on a single operating system to simplify management of your computer.
Monday’s announcement was the second Windows XP to reduce the spread of rights. Microsoft originally restricted Windows 7 Windows XP auctions for six months after the release of Windows 7, but searching in June 2009 after an analyst at Gartner Research plan “real chaos.”
Instead, Microsoft later said that it would allow the auctions to Windows XP within 18 months after October 2009 debut, Windows 7, or until the release of Windows 7 SP1.
In either scenario, the law on the transition to an older version of XP would have ended sometime in 2011, perhaps already in April.
On Monday, Microsoft changed its mind. Users of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate will now be able to reduce the system to Windows XP Professional during the whole life cycle of Windows 7.
“Our business customers tell us that removing the rating of the rights of end users on Windows XP Professional can be confusing,” said Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc, in the entry on the blog of the company.
In Windows 7 Professional will not fully retire until January 2020; Ultimate edition will be put out to pasture, five years earlier, in January 2015.
Note: 74% of the commercial computer running XP, the move is further evidence that this is a OS that won’t die.
Source: Computerworld