How can we NOT move to Vista without hoarding XP licenses?

May 12, 2008 5:30 PM

Can someone clarify how (volume?) licensing of XP is going to work when we refuse to move to Vista? Reading all day, nothing makes sense. Not that long left to figure it out.

Okay, so 50 people use XP Professional and are sticking with it until there's absolutely no choice.
But they're going to need computers replaced or bought for new employees.
Anything bought new after June, or whatever the final drop-dead date is, will have Vista.

What exactly do I need to do, in order to do the following legitimately?
Buy new PC with OEM Vista (Biz or Enterprise, probably):grab drivers, format hard drive
Install XP (from some other media)
Make the licensing gnomes happy.

Do I just need an XP install CD (OEM? Plain retail? some special thing?), and then use the Vista product key from the sticker? It can't be that simple. But I can't get an intelligible answer anywhere.

Thus I turn to the wise hive mind.
I can't be the only one needing a plan for this; please describe your method, or point me at some documentation that I've missed for how to do this.

posted by bartleby to computers & internet (5 comments total)

According to Toshiba, if you've got some (any kind, I think) installation medium for XP, you can use that; when you get to the product key stage, you call Microsoft and they'll give you a valid XP key to replace the Vista key. I don't know if all computer manufacturers are doing this, but that's the deal Toshiba worked out. (Note that they still aren't providing the drivers needed to run their products under XP, but that's another story).
posted by katemonster at 5:43 PM on May 12, 2008

straight from the horses mouth (google read-as-html version of a .doc file):

Can I downgrade my OEM version of Windows Vista Business to Windows XP Professional?

Yes. OEM downgrade rights for desktop PC operating systems apply to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate as stated in the License Terms. Please note, OEM downgrade versions of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate are limited to Windows XP Professional (including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP x64 Edition). End users can use the following media for their downgrade: Volume Licensing media (provided the end user has a Volume Licensing agreement), retail (FPP), or system builder hologram CD (provided the software is acquired in accordance with the Microsoft OEM System Builder License). Use of the downgraded operating system is governed by the Windows Vista Business License Terms, and the end user cannot use both the downgrade operating system and Windows Vista Business. There are no downgrade rights granted for Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium.

what I take this to mean is that you would get machines with Vista Business, then use the same license number and the XP media of your choosing to downgrade those machines. IAN anything to do with any step of the process, so don't take my interpretation as canon.
posted by heeeraldo at 5:43 PM on May 12, 2008

Vista product keys don't work with XP. Not sure where you got that idea.

Essentially, you take the XP license on your current computer, and use it on your new one with XP media (Retail, OEM, Volume License), and delete XP on your old computer.
posted by wongcorgi at 6:05 PM on May 12, 2008

What katemonster and heeeraldo said. You need to have the media and license key from a previous installation of XP. You use them to downgrade from Vista, and when the product activation fails you call Microsoft and explain that you're exercising your downgrade rights:

Q. What about product activation? When a previously licensed version of Windows XP Professional is used for the downgrade, won’t activation fail on the new PC?

A. When an end user is using their downgrade rights offered under the License Terms in Windows Vista Business and Ultimate versions and they use both Windows XP media and a product key that was previously activated, they will be unable to activate on-line over the Internet, due to the hardware configuration change when installing on the Vista system. In these cases the end user will be prompted to call the Activation Support Line and explain their circumstances to the Customer Service Representative. Once it is determined that the end user has a valid Vista Business or Ultimate license, the Customer Service Representative will help them activate their software.
posted by hades at 6:46 PM on May 12, 2008

End users can use the following media for their downgrade: Volume Licensing media (provided the end user has a Volume Licensing agreement), retail (FPP), or system builder hologram CD (provided the software is acquired in accordance with the Microsoft OEM System Builder License)

Careful with this para, wongcorgi. I don't believe that this means you can actually re-use an old OEM licence that you, as an end-user, acquired with an old machine.

OEM licences are tied to the machine that the OS was first installed on, and remain tied to that machine until it dies, at which point the licence dies with it. If you have an old XP machine you're about to replace with a new Vista machine, and you want the new machine to end up with XP, and all the licences are OEM licenses, and the Vista licence is one of the ones that has a "downgrade" right, you are still not allowed to re-use the old OEM XP licence when you replace Vista with XP on the new machine. You'd need a new OEM XP licence for that.

The only way you as an end user are allowed to obtain an OEM XP at all, as I understand it, is to buy it along with the system it's pre-installed on; this is what the terms of the Microsoft OEM System Builder Licence boil down to. They got rid of the thing where all you needed to buy to qualify for an OEM licence was another hard drive or stick of RAM.

It's all a bloody nightmare. Jump off the MS treadmill now before you get sucked in to the part with the dangling chainsaws and the big gear wheels and the shreddy stompy things.
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on May 12, 2008