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Loading ...After the deadline: Licence issues and additional support
As scary as the June deadline might be, it doesn’t mean enterprise XP users are without hope.
According to our colleague Galen Gruman of InfoWorld, volume licence users will still be able to install XP Pro after the order cutoff deadlines. “If you have a volume license for any version of Vista (not just Business and Ultimate), you may install XP Pro on your Vista PCs using the ‘downgrade rights’ granted in the volume licence,” according to Gruman.
“To downgrade, you can use your existing copy of the XP Pro installation images. Microsoft will also supply an XP Pro ‘downgrade’ installation disc or disk image after the cutoff dates. As noted earlier, OEMs can also do the ‘downgrade’ for you in some cases.
For those that get XP through subscription services, providers are the licence owners and therefore should still be able to offer the OS to customers, althuogh you should check with your local Softchoice rep (or other Canadian provider) to see what the terms and conditions are.
As for support, that’s supposed to end around April, but given the number of Microsoft-certified partners in Canada, there is likely to be a hot economy among resellers who assist customers with their efforts to extend XP. To find some of those firms, check out CDN’s list of the Top 100 Solution Providers in Canada.
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