What do I have the rights to downgrade to if I have a Windows Server 2008 license.

Here’s a question I saw show up over the weekend. A Partner asked, “If my client has a Windows Server 2008 license and one of their applications does not yet support Windows Server 2008, what do I have the rights to downgrade to? Well, using your downgrade rights, the Server edition(s) that you would have rights to downgrade to would depend on your original license.

For instance, if you have a Windows Server 2008 Enterprise license, you can choose to downgrade to: Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition or Windows 2000 Advanced Server (although I can’t imagine why you would want to go all the way back to Windows 2000 Server). If you have a Windows Server 2008 Standard license, you can choose to downgrade to: Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition or Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition or Windows 2000 Server (again, I can’t imagine why you would want to go all the way back to Windows 2000 Server).

As you can see, it is pretty logical that if you have the Enterprise version today, you have rights to downgrade to the Enterprise Editions in the past. If you have the Standard version today, you have rights to downgrade to the Standard Editions in the past. To make it easy for you, we have a full downgrade rights chart showing what you have downgrade rights to for the entire Windows Server 2008 lineup posted online for you.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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