Windows 7 downgrade rights extended beyond the anticipated release of Service Pack 1

When releasing Windows 7, originally Microsoft announced a limited period (window) during which an OEM operating system purchase could be downgraded to prior versions of the operating system – thereby creating additional motivation for customers to plan for deployment of Windows 7 as the standard operating system across the enterprise. This approach has now been reversed and the limitation removed.

Following the announcement of a change we published an interim article covering off the facts and relevance, however, in case you missed that publication we repeat our advice here – OEM versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate will continue to include downgrade rights to the similar versions of Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional.

Going forward, organisations can continue to purchase new hardware and utilise end user downgrade rights to Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP2 until they are ready to use Windows 7. Enabling such rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle will make it easier for customers as they plan deployments to Windows 7.

The announcement from Microsoft is below:

To support our customers’ “unprecedented move” to migrate their PC environment to Windows 7, we have decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1. This will help maintain consistency for downgrade rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle. As a result, the OEM versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate will continue to include downgrade rights to the similar versions of Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional.  Going forward, businesses can continue to purchase new PCs and utilise end user downgrade rights to Windows XP or Windows Vista until they are ready to use Windows 7. Enabling such rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle will make it easier for customers as they plan deployments to Windows 7.

What is the impact of the change?  For organisations who have a strong desire to maintain a single OS image across the environment the announcement from Microsoft buys them the time to appropriately evaluate and test Windows 7 ahead of a scheduled rollout. Computacenter doesn’t envisage this will result in shift of priorities for many firms as the majority of organisations have been expected to move forward on a phased basis – creating the need to support more than one end user OS for at least a limited period.

As part of the planning process every organisation should be aware that:

• Free support for Windows XP will cease in 2013
• Windows 7 ultimate is the only OEM edition providing value added features of inherent end point security, VPN, local Caching and multi language user interfaces that also come with Windows 7 Enterprise as a volume licence

For more information please contact your Computacenter account manager or email software@computacenter.com.

www.computacenter.com/microsoft