Sick Of Vista? NEC Lets You Get XP
February 06, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
NEC has introduced software that can let those with Vista on their PCs downgrade to XP. Is that a sigh of relief?
Yesterday NEC, the Japanese computer maker, officially launched its new Flexload product in the UK. Retailing for £7 to those who possess a valid Vista license, around $14, it allows Vista users to downgrade their computers to run Windows XP, ZDNet reports.
Given the fact that Vista hasn’t set the computing world on fire the way Microsoft hoped, it’s likely to prove popular. It’s a double DVD set. The first disc sets up a hard drive partition, then sets up the core drivers and files for XP on it. The second disc installs the rest of the XP files.
David Newbould, the UK product marketing manager for NEC, explained,
"From June on, we can only ship Vista, but the market requires XP" said Newbould. "A lot of [larger] customers want to stay with XP for now, as it's a difficult task to migrate [a lot of machines]."
The product is aimed at large companies, and those buying NEC computers can ask to have Flexload pre-installed. Dell offers a similar XP choice to its new computer customers.
As Flexload comes within the Vista download policy, it wasn’t necessary for the company to negotiate a license with Microsoft. Microsoft has said it will continue support for XP until 2012.
