By Tom Espiner, 6 February 2008 08:44
NEWS
The Japanese computer supplier NEC has officially launched a product to let network administrators downgrade machines running Windows Vista to XP.
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The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) first made the product, NEC FlexLoad, available to customers on 25 January. However, the product was officially launched yesterday.
Customers with a Vista licence can purchase the two-DVD pack for £7, according to David Newbould, NEC UK's product marketing manager. The first DVD sets up a partition on the hard drive and installs core XP files and drivers, while the second DVD installs the remaining XP files in the partition, said Newbould.
NEC recommends customers burn a Vista recovery CD before installing the XP partition.
From June, OEMs can no longer supply machines with XP as the operating system, said Newbould, yet customers still want to buy machines running XP.
Newbould said: "From June on, we can only ship Vista, but the market requires XP. A lot of [larger] customers want to stay with XP for now, as it's a difficult task to migrate [a lot of machines]."
Newbould added that a percentage of customers see no need to move to Vista, as XP serves their needs adequately, and XP will be supported on the current Microsoft roadmap until 2012.
He said: "We do have some customers who are very happy with XP and see [no need] to move to Vista at the moment. XP is a well-established platform for customers to operate from."
NEC customers purchasing machines in bulk can also request that NEC preinstall the XP partition on their machines. Newbould said NEC FlexLoad falls entirely within the Vista download policy, and so NEC did not have to negotiate with Microsoft when the OEM developed the software.
In November last year, analyst firm Gartner told silicon.com that businesses had no appetite for Vista, while analyst firm Ovum agreed that uptake had been slow.
Computer giant Dell also offers customers the choice to downgrade to XP, with its Dell XP Pro install disc.
Dell said in a statement: "Dell is committed to offering customers a choice of operating systems, so they can select the one that is best suited to their needs."
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Charles Wood
The reality is that a lot of existing software people have WILL NOT RUN on vista. So people want a solution for their existing software to work as well as any new stuff. Ie Vista itself is a "downgrade2 not the other way round. Most of us buy software so our machines will run faster, more reliably and as a practiacl benefit to us. That does not seem to be vista for most users.
2. David Fletcher
"From June on, we can only ship Vista"
Wrong! Dell is already shipping PCs in Europe with Ubuntu ready installed. So the customer already has a choice. And there's nothing anybody in Redmond can do about that.
Remember BeOS? That's not going to happen this time around.
3. Charles Smith
So from June 08 decide between Vista, Leopard or Desktop LINUX?
Microsoft seems intent on aggravating its customer base over this XP/Vista issue. We use both, but see no real gain from Vista. Maybe it is time for us to properly trial Desktop LINUX and SaaS solutions. Certainly the Google office type of internet based toool are looking promising. They might even save on the support costs associated with the MS Products.
4. Karen Challinor
Pity NEC can't offer this to everyone who has Vista but wants XP
5. Christopher Quinton
It is a hassle to move back to XP from Vista, when buying a new PC, although it's worth the effort, if you insist on staying with MS.
If Microsoft remains so intransigent about not selling customers what they want it adds impetus to move to Linux, Google and Open Office.
That's what I shall be doing with my next laptop.
6. Karen Challinor
apparently if you have a sufficiently posh version of Vista ( business or ultimate ) you are allowed to downgrade to XP free of charge ( http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/4/5f4c83d3-833e-4f11-8cbd-699b0c164182/royaltyoemreferencesheet.pdf ) appears to indicate that you can only downgrade if you have upgraded to Vista, you seem to need the previous XP activation code to downgrade, so if your PC was shipped with Vista you would appear not to have this right
however CNET Asia has found ( http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2007/09/24/downgrade-your-vista-to-xp/ ) that if you call Microsoft and cite your Vista serial number you can have an XP professional activation code, you'll need to provide your own media though
I wonder if we asked them nicely they would provide a downgrade path to XP Home for slightly less posh versions of Vista