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Microsoft Says No Profit In Vista-XP Downgrades
CWmike writes "Microsoft has denied that it makes money when users 'downgrade' Windows Vista to XP, as a lawsuit filed last week alleges. The lawsuit, submitted last week, stems from the $59.25 fee that a California woman was charged in mid-2008 when she bought a Lenovo laptop and downgraded from Vista to XP. In fact, it's computer makers, not Microsoft per se, that charge users the additional fees for downgrading a new PC from Vista to XP at the factory. For example, Dell Inc. adds an extra $20 to the price to downgrade a PC. However, Microsoft may profit from the way it structures downgrade rights."
Maybe their whole production process is customized with a Vista image. Imagine that you now have an employee that needs to yank out the vista hard drive, throw in an xp hard drive, and then have another employee make sure that it is an XP system before it ships out. Not to mention the cost of changing the OS sticker on the laptop...
Even if Microsoft was making money off a so-called downgrade, why is that grounds for a lawsuit? Are companies only allowed to profit from certain product lines now?
something that to many people and organizations is still considered a valued piece of software.
There's the problem. People consider XP more valuable than Vista and are willing to pay extra for it, so they charge extra.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Do you have to buy a PS3 to get a PS2?
Do you have to buy Terminator 2 to get Terminator 1?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
No, and you don't need to buy Vista to get XP.
Choose a vendor that still sells XP.
Buy XP separately.
Use your old XP license on your new computer.
XP Home is $90.
Vista Home Basic is $90.
If a vendor has entered into an agreement with MS that states that all PCs must ship with Vista, then that was their fault. If they want to offer XP, for free or for an additional fee, that is their choice.
There is no rock or hard place.
If you're not happy with Vista (and I can certainly understand that) and you feel you're being winked-and-nudged by the hoops you have to jump through to get XP, maybe you shouldn't still be giving MS the cash.
What if everyone that wanted XP didn't buy Vista to downgrade and instead wrote to MS that they wanted XP without hoops?
Sure, the first few hundred will be laughed at by customer support. The next thousand maybe not so much. And after a hunderd thousand customers called (and sales not made) you can bet XP is all over the shelves again.
Sometimes life can be so easy, but we choose to make it difficult.
Not quite correct. FTA:"...when Dell was accused of gouging customers by charging $150 to downgrade a new computer to XP. Dell countered that although it did charge $20 to install XP on the machine, as well as to cover the cost of the additional media, the bulk -- $120 of the $150 -- was the price of upgrading the PC from the standard Home Premium to the more expensive Business edition.
Microsoft does not offer downgrade rights with its Vista Home Premium, the most popular of Vista's editions."
Your Dell config came with Vista Home Premium? Well, if you want XP you're SOL, that'll be $120 to 'upgrade' the Vista you want to 'downgrade'.
Right, so I won't
Yes
No, I won't pay a cent for something I don't plan to use. I very specifically don't want to reward in the slightest or appear in the usage statistics of something I don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.
Neither. It doesn't make sense that I have to pay extra for the ability of using something older, which by all logic should be cheaper.
I wasn't given enough choice, and yes, I will bitch about it until satisfied, because that's the only way things get done these days. See the recent Facebook TOS change. Have enough people complain about it loudly enough, and things do get done.
The manufacturers aren't doing me a favour by allowing me to buy their products. I'm doing them a favour by choosing their product and paying a price, and no, I'm not going to comply with arbitrary demands and act as if their offerings were gifts from heaven.
Not 2 licenses... At my company, we build clones for our customer - with Vista, but we downgrade them all to XP. It's just 1 license. According to M$FT, They will not provide you with Media (you need your own XP media) or a license key (you reuse a key you have). When you go to activate, (if you didn't use a non-activation code) you have to explain to the rep that you are using your downgrade rights, and they will provide a new machine code for activation (not a new key). Vista Ultimate and Vista Business can be downgraded to XP in this manner.
So, to paraphrase: ...a license key (you reuse a key you have).
1. They will not provide you with Media (you need your own XP media)
2. They will not provide you with
3. Some complex bullshit is required to activate.
Sounds just like downloading a Torrent, only more expensive...
So as I said, I don't. XP is what I want, but I refuse to get it by getting Vista first. The only option I will go with is "XP, at a normal price"
That one is easy, there's demand, there's little supply, and you can't make an original Model M without restarting whatever factory made them, which may have already been demolished.
Software is much different. Pressing an XP CD and pressing a Vista CD has the same cost, measured in cents. Preloading XP is unlikely to be more expensive than preloading Vista, especially since it's something that's been done for many years, and every manufacturer by now will have the process fully set up and debugged.
By all logic, XP should be cheaper.
The only reason it isn't is because Microsoft wants to sell people Vista, regardless of what they want. But that has nothing to do with the economics of CD pressing and distribution.
That's how it used to work. Things aren't like this anymore.
These days, the customers aren't independent anonymous people who show up at a shop and make an independent choice about which flavor of jam to buy. These days they go on forums, communicate and organize, and when they figure out that they can pressure a manufacturer to get what they want, they go and do that, because in large enough numbers it works.
You seem to fail to realize that what you say enables this. I can say "I won't buy Vista, and won't buy XP at an extra price". For me individually this means that if MS doesn't offer the option I want, then yes, I go and use something else instead. But when it turns out that it's not just me, and there are millions of people who want the same, suddenly they become strong enough to force MS bend to their demand, because when there are that many people who want something, some of them turn out to be in control of important contracts, some willing enough to start a lawsuit, some to make their opinions widely heard, and so on. And collectively, all that, might well cost more than giving people what they want.
Manufacturers are in the business to respond whims shared by millions of whining potential customers, because not doing that endangers their ability to make a profit.