Vista downgrade rights expire?

[VirtualLarry]

I thought that if you bought Vista Business, you got downgrade rights to XP Pro, and Vista Home Premium to XP Home (kinda fuzzy on that last one).

But according to this article, those downgrade rights will expire at the end of the year!!!

So if you were planning on sticking with XP a while longer, exercise those downgrade rights NOW. Don't wait. Or Microsoft will screw you.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Or Microsoft will screw you.

By doing what, giving you the product that you purchased? They offer downgrades as a convenience to customers.

Your post is basically just FUD. It's not even clear from the article what downgrade program is supposed to end this year; the article implies that it is a Russia-specific program that has not even been implemented yet. There also appears to be a typographic or translation error somewhere in the chain, as the quoted FAS statement indicates that there is such a thing as Vista Premium (vice Vista Home Premium) when they presumably meant Vista Ultimate.

Moreover, the older DailyTech article linked from within that one explicitly states that buyers will be able to downgrade to XP through at least April 2010.

 

[RebateMonger]

Downgrade rights from Vista to XP were limited to OEM and Volume License versions of Vista Business, Ultimate, and, presumably, Enterprise. No downgrades from Vista Home Premium were ever offered.

Downgrade rights never expire. But Microsoft originally planned to stop handing out downgrade disks to partners in January, 2009. That was later extended to July, 2009. Microsoft said that after July, customers can contact Microsoft for a disk.

Infoworld article on Microsoft discontinuing the downgrade software.

Microsoft information on downgrade rights.