You’ll likely end up talking with a live rep tell him that you’re downgrading from Vista to XP, and give him the Vista product key. Install a copy of Windows XP Professional with the product key that came with the copy, and then when you hit the activation screen which is near the end of the installation process – select the activate by phone option rather than the online method. Those who aren’t: all users of Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium, and anyone who upgraded to Vista using a retail edition of any of the operating system’s SKUs. Only the OEM editions qualify for a downgrade, so if you purchased a new PC with either Business or Ultimate preinstalled, you’re in luck. So, what downgrades does Microsoft allow? Owners of the OEM editions of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate can downgrade to Windows XP Professional, including Tablet PC Edition and 圆4 Edition. In that case, it simply means dumping Vista and returning to XP. To the vast bulk of users, though, ‘downgrade’ is a synonym for reverting to an older version. By Microsoft’s end-user licensing agreement (EULA), you can’t have both the Vista and its downgraded XP installed at the same time on the same or different machines. Think of it as a swap, Vista for XP, not as an extra licence. In effect, the licence for Vista is transferred to XP. Specifically, these downgrade rights let owners of some versions of Vista replace it with XP without having to pay for another licence. In an older-to-newer move, developers usually make it possible to retain all the digital detritus on the drive, from already-installed applications and Word documents to iTunes tracks and family photos, while updating the system files. Downgrade doesn’t mean the process for rolling back Windows from Vista to XP, since there isn’t such a procedure, not in the generally accepted use of ‘upgrade’.

To Microsoft, ‘downgrade’ describes the licensing rights it grants to older operating systems.

Downgrade windows 7 to vista youtube