Windows XP has got more life via Windows 7 Downgrade Rights

Windows XP has got more life via Windows 7 Downgrade Rights

Here comes another wise move by Microsoft, the company announced that Windows XP will continue to be available via Windows 7 downgrade rights. When Windows 7 RTM’d, Microsoft stated that end-users could downgrade right Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate editions preinstalled on a new PC would allow a customer to downgrade to either Windows XP Professional or similar Windows Vista versions for 18 months, or until the availability of SP1, whichever came sooner.

However another announcement has been made just before Official Windows XP SP2 expiration. Now end-user can downgrade Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate editions preinstalled on a new PC to either Windows XP Professional or similar Windows Vista versions until Windows 7 lifecycle is discontinued.


Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Team Blog says-

To support our customers “unprecedented move” to migrate their PC environment to Windows 7, we have decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1. This will help maintain consistency for downgrade rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle. As a result, the OEM versions of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate will continue to include downgrade rights to the similar versions of Windows Vista or Windows XP Professional.

As per current Windows lifecycle policy, the company allows retailers to sell the boxed version of the previous OS for up to a year after release of a new OS, and that OEMs can sell PCs with the previous OS pre-loaded for up to 2 years after, the launch date of the new OS. which clearly states that retailers will be able to sell the boxed version of Windows Vista until October 22, 2010, and OEMs will be able to sell PCs with Windows Vista preinstalled until October 22, 2011.

Source: Windows Team Blog

Windows 7 Tutorials - How to Manage Your Disks using the Disk Management Utility

Below article shows how to work with the Disk Management utility so that you can do whatever you want to your disk partitions for both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. To view the article, please click the below link.

How to Manage Your Disks using the Disk Management Utility Windows 7 Tutorials

Add a "Up to parent folder" button in explorer for Windows 7

Windows 7 explorer no longer supports a “folder up” button that can take you back up to the parent folder. Instead, Windows 7 and Vista only has a back button. Below is to add a simple “up” button to Windows explorer in Windows 7 or Vista using a free program called “ClassicShell”. As its name suggests, this software adds a number of functions inspired by the classic Windows XP shell, including a classic “start” menu.

Step 1: download the latest version of ClassicShell (works on 32bit and 64 bit OS’s). The version I used at the time of this writing is 1.9.8

Step 2: run the executable to begin the installation. Make sure to uncheck “Classic Start Menu” (unless you in fact want it) but keep “classic explorer” checked.

Step 3: Open any folder then press ALT+T on your keyboard to access “folder options” in Windows 7.

Step 4: Click on the “view” tab and then check “always show menus”. And click “OK”.

Step 5: Right click in a blank area on the newly visible file menu then check “Classic Explorer Bar”.

Step 6: Click on the now-visible “ClassicShell” icon to access the program settings.

Step 7: In the Classic Explorer settings, do the following

• Check “Show Up button in the title bar”
• Uncheck “Show caption in the title bar” and “Show icon in the title bar” — unless you want these.
• Uncheck “Enable classic copy UI” and “Show free space and file size in status bar” — unless you want these.
• Click “OK”

Step 8: Once you exit out of the settings, go back and uncheck “Classic Explorer Bar” — unless you actually like and want it. (Remember that the object of this post is to only add an “UP folder” button to Windows explorer).

Step 9: Go back to the folder options (ALT+T as in steps 3 and 4 above) and uncheck “always show menus” then click OK.

• Original Post: How to add a "go up to parent folder" button in explorer for Windows 7 and Vista