Microsoft has told news media that when Windows 7 is released, it will allow volume-license users to downgrade to either the current Vista operating system or the older XP. There are also news reports that the software giant will allow Hewlett-Packard to continue selling XP on its computers for another year.

Release Candidate From Vista

While some eyebrows are being raised among industry observers, the downgrade policy is in keeping with Microsoft's approach to big purchasers, whose license gives them the right to use any version of Windows.

Although Vista may not be the only choice if a user wants to move backward from Windows 7, it's still the launching pad. In a post on its Windows 7 engineering blog, the Microsoft team noted that many of its Windows 7 beta testers are running Windows 7 full-time and are getting ready to upgrade to the release candidate (RC).

But the RC, the team wrote, "is about getting breadth coverage to validate the product in real-world scenarios." As a result, the team is asking testers to revert to Vista and then upgrade to the RC -- or do a clean install of the RC rather than upgrading to the RC from Windows 7 beta.

"The reality is that upgrading from one prerelease build to another is not a scenario we want to focus on because it is not something real-world customers will experience," the team wrote on the blog.

53 Percent Skipping Vista

However, a new poll from industry research firm ChangeWave indicates that Windows 7 beta testers would prefer not to venture back to Vista. It surveyed 68 Windows 7 beta testers in mid-February and found that 44 percent of the testers' companies were "very satisfied" with Windows 7, compared with only 10 percent who said the same about Vista around the same time in 2007.

Performance, speed, fewer driver issues, less imposing memory requirements, a clean interface, easy customization, and faster boot-ups were cited. Complaints about Windows 7 included instability and incompatibility, which are not uncommon for a new OS.

One comment by a respondent summarizes why Microsoft is not completely writing off XP. Windows 7, the respondent said, "reminds me of a new XP." The same survey asked 2,000 corporate IT buyers about upgrade plans, and about 53 percent they plan to skip Vista completely.

Microsoft is being "pragmatic in giving users what they want" by keeping XP around, said Laura DiDio, an analyst with Information Technology Intelligence Corp.

But, she noted, for many users the question of whether to upgrade to Windows 7 is whether there is a "compelling reason." While Windows 7 will have many "nice-to-haves which collectively will make life easier," she said, it's not clear whether it will have any must-haves, either from Microsoft or from a third-party developer.