Windows XP downgrade rights inanity

Fairly frequently, I skip over “news” items that seem to take the computing world by fire. For example, you haven’t seen me post anything about Windows 7 Build 7105. Why? I don’t have Build 7105 yet, and I have no intention of adding to the vacuous link-to-somebody-who-links-to-somebody chain that amplifies and speculates, but does nothing to elucidate.

Another example: the raging ersatz-news that Microsoft is going to let Windows 7 owners “downgrade” to Windows XP. If you read the fine print, the Microsoft announcement only covered volume-license versions of Windows 7, so it only applies to companies that buy big licenses for Windows 7. Ed Bott has a great take on the news: big companies have always had “downgrade” rights, for every volume-license version of Windows since the time of the pterodactyls.

If you buy a new computer after, oh, mid-August, I can guarantee that the last thing you’ll want to do is downgrade it from Windows 7 to Windows XP. I’ve been running Windows 7 Ultimate (beta build) on an Asus Eee PC 1000H for more than a month, and it works great. I wouldn’t trade it in for a Windows XP version for all the tea in China.

Microsoft’s program allows for big companies to continue to run older versions of Windows on older computers and keep their licenses valid. Microsoft may even allow hardware vendors to ship computers with Windows XP pre-installed, at least for a little while. That’s going to be a foolhardy choice. Wait. You’ll see.