14 DAY TRIAL // Since its introduction in November 2006 for businesses and in January 2007 for the general consumers, Microsoft's ride with Windows Vista has been plagued with a variety of problems as well as the subsequent criticism. The fact of the matter is that Vista failed to deliver the Wow Microsoft promised and backed up with a $500 million worldwide marketing campaign. Despite the mixed reviews for Windows Vista, the Redmond company applauded shipping in excess of 60 million copies of the platform worldwide, following the first six months of general availability. Recent statistics from Net Application, compiled at the end of September, put Vista at over 7% of the operating system market, a percentage roughly equivalent with over 70 million sold licenses.
And yet there are Windows Vista "victims" that would prefer going back to Windows XP. Expatica reported that the Dutch Consumers' Association (Consumentenbond) met with Microsoft Netherlands in order to convince the company to provide unsatisfied Vista users with free XP alternatives. Microsoft Netherlands refused such a scenario, and in this context, users that have acquired Windows Vista are stuck with the operating system. Microsoft does offer the possibility of downgrading to Windows XP from Windows Vista, but only to corporate users, and Software Assurance customers via volume licenses. End users are essentially stuck with whatever they get, in this case - Vista.
Microsoft failed to offer official comments in relation to the matter. Consumentenbond approached the company following a survey it conducted via its official website. In no more than five weeks, the Dutch Consumers' Association managed to gather in excess of 5,000 complaints related to Windows Vista. The issues were connected for the vast majority with hardware and software incompatibility and lack of device and driver support for the operating system. Extending downgrades to end users as well as business customers would have been a simple alternative, but Microsoft refused to provide free Windows XP packages to clients experiencing problems with Windows Vista outside of the corporate environment. As a direct consequence, Consumentenbond is now advising Dutch consumers to explicitly ask for Windows XP on systems from original equipment manufacturers.