Microsoft customers can still choose XP

Can downgrade from Windows 7 in many years.

Windows XP will soon be nine years old, but a number of Microsoft's customers will continue to have this operating system. Therefore, Microsoft has once again changed the last date it will be possible to downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows XP (or Windows Vista).

While modest until now has been that volume license customers should be able to downgrade to Windows XP until Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 is released, but a maximum of 18 months after Windows 7 was launched. Now Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc writes in a blog post that customers will be able to downgrade to Windows XP or Vista in the whole lifecycle of Windows 7, and then upgrade to the new version when they are ready for this.


Microsoft has tried to stop licensing the sale of Windows XP several times. Among others were the sale of the installation media stopped before the end of July 2008, after the first should have been stopped at the end of January 2008. Microsoft officially stopped selling Windows XP licenses on 30 June 2008, but still sell netbooks with Windows XP. This will expire on 22 October this year.

The blog writes LeBlanc also that Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available in a beta release. The same applies to the first service pack for Windows Server 2008 R2.

SP1 to Windows 7 lists patches that have been released earlier. It includes no new functionality. Service Pack for Windows Server 2008 R2 includes on its side several improvements related to virtualization. An overview can be found in this blog post.