Vista: Downgrade rights

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I've seen a few people on the forums suggesting that people get Vista and (if they arent satisfied) downgrade to xp until they are ready to upgrade back up to vista (presumeably after SP1 is released).

Something seemed fishy about this to me, so I did a little digging around on google. Of all the sites I found, they all indicated that whilst this is an official policy of MS, there are conditions.

Firstly, the downgrade policy only applies to Vista Business (all versions) and Vista Ultimate licenses.

Secondly, (certainly for the average users) you need to already have a disc for XP

Thirdly, the downgrade only permits a downgrade on the machine to XP Pro, so if you wanted XP home or Media Center, it doesnt apply.

Finally, there seems to be indications from various sites that downgrading isnt an easy process and will likely result in you having to call MS to activate the product.

Also, it may be obvious, but i should really mention that you are not permitted to use the vista OS whilst you are utilising the downgrade option (that is, you cant install the license on one machine and use the downgrade option to install XP onto a second machine - or even dual boot on the same machine).

Confirmation can be found Here

Admittedly the sources I found all seemed to be a month or two old, so it may have changed in the interim. But i doubt it. If anyone knows of a more recent source which says different to here, please post it. Always handy to know.

 

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Confirmation from Microsoft: document link

However, there's one big gotcha - it applies ONLY to the OEM version of the OS, per the license terms... *not* the FPP (Full Package Product, or Retail version of the OS:

 

Aha. so the Vista install has to be an OEM version, but you can use any media to downgrade (ie an OEM/VLM/FPP disc of XP Pro).

 

That is correct.