PCTips Box

To Microsoft, ‘downgrade’ describes the licensing rights it grants to older operating systems. Downgrade doesn’t mean the process for rolling back Windows from Vista to XP, since there isn’t such a procedure, not in the generally accepted use of ‘upgrade’. In an older-to-newer move, developers usually make it possible to retain all the digital detritus on the drive, from already-installed applications and Word documents to iTunes tracks and family photos, while updating the system files. Not so in a downgrade.

Specifically, these downgrade rights let owners of some versions of Vista replace it with XP without having to pay for another licence. In effect, the licence for Vista is transferred to XP. Think of it as a swap, Vista for XP, not as an extra licence. By Microsoft’s end-user licensing agreement (EULA), you can’t have both the Vista and its downgraded XP installed at the same time on the same or different machines. You have to pick: It’s one or the other. (more…)

With the advent of Windows Vista, the issue of downgrading to Windows XP came into the limelight and got a consistent amount of play throughout 2007. Initially, Microsoft had a complex downgrading process in place that forced Windows users to go from Vista to XP through unnecessary activation pains. As a direct consequence of user feedback, the company simplified the downgrading process, in order to streamline the implementation of an older Windows iteration in place of Vista.

Here was the old process of downgrading from Vista to XP, courtesy of Microsoft: “when an end user is using their downgrade rights offered under the License Terms in Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate editions, and they use both Windows XP media and product keys that were previously activated, they cannot activate online over the Internet, due to the hardware configuration change when installing on the Windows Vista system. (more…)