Downgrade Rights?

It seems like a good deal to go from Windows XP to Windows 8 Pro for $40. Would it be possible to handover $40, get Windows 8 Pro, and downgrade it to Windows 7 Pro?

-Josh

@JoshRoss: That's probably not what Microsoft intends nor wants to happen.

@cbae: It might not be ideal, but it does accomplish two things. It gets people off Windows XP. Secondly, it generates revenue that might not otherwise materialize.

I have a lot of netbooks that have a screen resolution too low to run ANY metro apps, other than the start screen. I would rather they run something newer that XP, but I'm not going to doll-out serious money to enable that.

-Josh

I'm not aware that MS have announced the Win8 downgrade rights yet, but one would hope that having shelled out for a valid Win8-Pro (is that what it's called now?) license, you would be entitled to downgrade it to Win7-Pro - assuming you have access to the media.

Typically MS would kill Win7 product sales once Win8 is released, making Win7-Pro upgrades a non-option, unless you have Win8-Pro downgrade rights available.

It's not going to cost MS anything, it does boost the Win8 sales figured, and it does reduce the WinXP numbers, so why would they waste resources making Win8-Pro upgrades inelligable for Win7-Pro downgrade rights?

I'm also assuming that this is what business is intending to do with new Win8-Pro desktop/laptop purchases - same as they did with Vista purchases downgraded to WinXP.

However, MS have done plenty of inexplicable things in the past, so anything is possible.

17 minutes ago, elmer wrote

I'm also assuming that this is what business is intending to do with new Win8-Pro desktop/laptop purchases - same as they did with Vista purchases downgraded to WinXP.

However, MS have done plenty of inexplicable things in the past, so anything is possible.

The difference with businesses is that they buy Software Assurance which 1) keeps them licensed for the then-current version of Windows and 2) always gives them downgrade rights to whatever version they need to run in their enterprise (which is how Microsoft was able to say businesses were flocking to Vista/7 even though they were still on XP).

If non-business XP to Win8 upgraders without SA get downgrade rights to Win7, it will be the first time Microsoft has ever allowed that.

But hey --- you don't need to run Metro and the desktop is still there. Why would you need Windows 7 if you upgraded to 8? It's not like anyone's being forced to use the Metro start screen or Metro apps. At least, that's what I keep hearing here.

1 hour ago, Craig_​Matthews wrote

*snip*

The difference with businesses is that they buy Software Assurance which 1) keeps them licensed for the then-current version of Windows and 2) always gives them downgrade rights to whatever version they need to run in their enterprise (which is how Microsoft was able to say businesses were flocking to Vista/7 even though they were still on XP).

That model is only applicable to LARGE business.

SMB tends to buy new hardware with pre-installed software, and use the downgrade rights of that license to maintain their standard platform policy.

But hey --- you don't need to run Metro and the desktop is still there. Why would you need Windows 7 if you upgraded to 8? It's not like anyone's being forced to use the Metro start screen or Metro apps. At least, that's what I keep hearing here.

This is a whole separate discussion, but as a single data-point, we trialed Win8 in our desktop-oriented offices, and the response was unanimous -- please don't make us use it. We have no intention of putting ourselves through the pain of Win8, when Win7 will do everything we need.

10 hours ago, elmer wrote

That model is only applicable to LARGE business.

SMB tends to buy new hardware with pre-installed software, and use the downgrade rights of that license to maintain their standard platform policy.

Windows preinstalled on hardware has never had downgrade rights. If you buy a computer with Windows version N preinstalled, you do not get downgrade rights to version N-1. Downgrade rights only exist if you buy Software Assurance.

In other words, if you buy 30 machines with Windows 7 preinstalled, you don't get to put Windows XP on them without SA -- it doesn't matter how big your business is (Unless, of course, you have non-OEM unused XP licenses lying around -- which is not what we're talking about).

The only "downgrade" rights you get with an OEM Preinstall is the ability to purchase an upgrade for that preinstallation and then fail to use the upgrade. That, however, would not be a downgrade, it would simply be someone wasting money on an upgrade license they have no intention of using.

Apparently I was mistaken about downgrade rights on OEM preinstallations and that OEM preinstallations do have downgrade rights:

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=NbRYestewy2

Apparently, every Microsoft licensing rep has also lied to me for the past 10 years because my previous post was right out of their mouths. To downgrade OEM preinstalled operating systems I have always been forced to purchase SA "for downgrade rights" regardless of the size of business I was dealing with. Looks like I should be able to get a metric * ton of money back.

* Update: from URL above: Other OEM Windows 7 versions (for instance, Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Home Premium) do not include downgrade rights. Apparently, only Pro and Ultimate OEM installs get downgrade rights, not the home editions, which makes sense.

16 hours ago, Craig_​Matthews wrote

Why would you need Windows 7 if you upgraded to 8? It's not like anyone's being forced to use the Metro start screen or Metro apps. At least, that's what I keep hearing here.

While there's some alternate methods that people can use to get to the desktop, Microsoft disabled the changes that you could make that would allow you to boot directly to the desktop (bypassing the startup-screen-formally-known-as-Metro) and have the "start orb" displayed. Apparently this was done shortly before the RTM build to "clean up" legacy code in the operating system.

Yeah. Right.

It's pretty clear that Microsoft has taken the position that sooner or later we're all going to use this new UI, and we're going to learn to like it, whether we really want to or not.

The Start Screen adds one click to getting to the desktop. I really don't understand why people are so upset about it.

For me personally, it's less the start screen (even though its pointless for how I use my desktop) and more the fact that they've also gone out of their way to bork the desktop interface. I know that I'll have a copy of Windows 8 installed for testing, but there's no way I'm going to use that platform for the type of development work I do. Not as it is right now.

9 hours ago, Craig_​Matthews wrote

Apparently, only Pro and Ultimate OEM installs get downgrade rights, not the home editions, which makes sense.

That's right. I used to be a reseller, and never sold a system with Vista-Pro pre-installed which wasn't downgraded by the buyer to XP-Pro - no SA required.

@mstefanik:Desktop functionality in Win8 appears a lot better than Win7's, unsure what specifically is "borked" about it?  I haven't noticed any regressions since using Win8, am I missing something?

50 minutes ago, Garulon wrote

 am I missing something?

It's missing a start button like in Windows 7.