Skipping Vista

[Onkel Neal]

Interesting!


http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4109

Despite the fact that Windows 7 is almost cooked, a leaked Microsoft memo suggests that XP may live on past its May 30, 2009 retirement date.

The leaked internal memo outlines how Microsoft will grant HP the right to continue to downgrading Vista systems to XP. The memo does however go on too suggest that HP should be clear with customers about support:

It’s important to remind customers that Microsoft are still planning to retire XP Pro Mainstream support on April 14, 2009 and will only provide OS security updates beyond that date unless the customer has an Extended Hotfix Support contract. MS Extended Support for XP Pro ends on April 8th, 2014.

Unconfirmed rumors go further and suggest that Microsoft will allow HP to ship XP until April 30, 2010. If this XP extension has being granted to HP, it will almost certainly be extended to other OEMs.

It is worth bearing in mind that the EULA for both Vista Business and Ultimate allow users to downgrade, so this will remain in effect for the entire lifetime of the OS.

With Windows XP still commanding a 63% market share, netbook popularity continuing to rise, and Windows 7 still several months away, Microsoft needs an OS to cater for those who won’t touch Vista with a 20 foot pole. Rather than give those folks an excuse to look at Linux, it’s in Microsoft’s interests to continue to make XP seem relevant. That said, since downgrade rights exist for Business and Ultimate, as well as volume licensing customers, I think that all this leaked memo is about is making sure that OEMs remind customers of the support implications of choosing to downgrade from Vista.

XP is the OS that won't die!

But this is going to seriously derail my strategy

http://www.trustedreviews.com/software/news/2009/04/07/Windows-7-Will-Downgrade-To-But-Not-Upgrade-From-XP/p1

Hopefully it's not too late to ask Microsoft to reverse this...


In a classic case of not giving the public what they way, the Redmond giant has today confirmed that Windows 7 users will be able to downgrade their operating systems to Windows XP, but XP users will be unable to upgrade to Windows 7.


Speaking on its Windows 7 blog, the team confirmed: "Many have asked about upgrading from Windows XP. There's no change here to the plan as has been discussed on many forums. We realized at the start of this project that the "upgrade" from XP would not be an experience we think would yield the best results. There are simply too many changes in how PCs have been configured (applets, hardware support, driver model, etc.) that having all of that support carry forth to Windows 7 would not be nearly as high quality as a clean install."

Jeez, the stupid MS tricks continue....