To be honest Ben, I'm not all that worried. Vista has been pretty stable as an x64 platform since SP1. I still downgrade my 32-bit sales to XP, mostly because that the uniform OS for my clients who were put off of Vista because of the problems at release. I still sell Vista when my clients need a PC that takes advantage of x64 architecture. Our plan is to sell Windows 7 on any new PC (32 or 64 bit) we sell after it releases and make use of XP Mode where necessary. We made that decision yesterday based on the fact that I've been running Win7 RC without issue since shortly after its release, and that Trend Worry Free 6.0 works just fine on it. (5.1 had issues, so I had to run Internet Security until 6.0 released last month.)
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:29 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Win 7 license gotchas: Limits on upgrade from Vista, downgrade to XP Acquire an OEM license for Win 7 before 23 April 2010, and you can downgrade to Vista or XP. But buy on or after that date, and you can only downgrade to Vista -- *not* XP.[1] Acquire an OEM license for Vista from before the Win 7 release, and you can upgrade to Win 7 when it comes out -- but for no more than 25 computers within an organization.[2] Why is Microsoft making it more difficult for customers to decide to give them money? I would think that, as long as they're getting paid, they wouldn't care what release of Windows we run. Grrrr. Now we have to accelerate our upgrade schedule, pay for each seat twice (OEM and VL), and/or decide to jump ship entirely for another platform. Every time they pull a stunt like this, that last option becomes a little more attractive. [1] http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/microsofts-looming-windows-7-licensing-disast er-xp-shops-639 [2] http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/windows-7-upgrade-campaign-savings-limited-en terprises-166 -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
