In a reversal of its earlier stance, Microsoft officials confirmed that customers will be able to downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows XP for a year and a half after the new system ships, or until the first Service Pack drops — whichever comes first.
While some industry observers the modified downgrade policy is a change for the better, at least one analyst says Microsoft still hasn’t enough to provide options for enterprises.
This industry observer says Microsoft simply hasn’t a clue!
The downgrade option is also not available to all Windows 7 users: Downgrade rights apply to purchasers of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate, so the option isn’t available to customers who buy Windows 7 Home Premium.
Additionally, customers who have either Software Assurance subscriptions or Enterprise Agreements with Microsoft can continue to get the downgrade as long as they want.
Confused, yet?
“Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate customers will have the option to downgrade to Windows XP Professional from PCs that ship within 18 months following the general availability of Windows 7 or until the release of a Windows 7 service pack (SP), whichever is sooner and if an SP is developed,” a Microsoft spokesperson told InternetNews.com in an e-mail.
Understand that, OK?
Eideard 
Why would you even WANT to downgrade
I’m running RC1 on a 2.2 ghz Athlon 64 with 2 gigs of DDR 333 ram and it runs no slower than it did with XP, and I crash noticeably less.
I’m running it on a 1.67 Athlon XP system with 1GB of RAM and it’s faster and more stable than XP. Why would you want to go back?
After Vista, you would think they might have a better plan than this. Microsoft is a huge company- why can’t they seem to get this right?
This speaks most of all to Microsoft non-leadership. Not only within their own firm; but, in the industry.
Can you imagine, say, Toyota getting ready to bring over the new LQ3 (which I wish they would) and prefacing the announcement with a statement that “after it craps out and needs a recall for lousy wiring you’ll only be able to participate in the recall if you bought it for fleet use”…?