Vista undesirable as enterprise users continue downgrading to XP

by Stevie Smith - Aug 20 2008, 12:56

While Microsoft has gone to great pains to instil a sense of consumer confidence in its much maligned Vista operating system, outlining impressive unit sales figures at each successive fiscal opportunity, a new study has revealed that a large number of Vista owners are still downgrading to XP.

More pointedly, market research specialist Devil Mountain Software, which amasses global real-world metrics from Windows-equipped computers, has revealed that almost 35 percent of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate owners have used the software’s included downgrade option and shifted from Vista to XP.

According to the survey, new Vista users choosing to drop down to XP shows no sign of tailing off at this juncture, despite Windows XP being officially retired from retail and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) availability in June of this year and Microsoft insisting that Vista is performing superbly in terms of sales.

Devil Mountain Software’s study covered more than 3,000 users who provided their data via the company’s exo.performance.network, reports TGDaily, which also outlines that the study’s final results were amassed by matching vendor and system ID data from the network and then comparing it with system vendor figures.

By employing this process, Devil Mountain Software was able to estimate the number of Vista-equipped computer systems shipped over the last six-month period and how many were subsequently downgraded by the customer or the OEM.

Devil Mountain Software’s CTO, Craig Barth, commented that “these machines were downgraded by Dell or HP, or they were downgraded by the user after they got the machine.” And, regardless of exactly who instigated the downgrades noted in the survey, Barth went on to say that what is clear is that “these machines are no longer running Vista.”

According to the End User License Agreement (EULA) attributed to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate, users are able to opt for a Windows XP Professional installation should they so wish -- although Vista remains a useable option at all times.

While the survey suggests that more than a third of all Business and Ultimate users are choosing the stalwart stability of XP -- likely due to the extreme overhaul costs related to attuning networks to Vista -- Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. is keen to stress that since launching on January 31 of 2007 Windows Vista has built more than 180 million license sales across its entire portfolio of editions.

Around the Web