Criticism of Windows Vista including Photoshop and WinRAR, also performed worse under Vista. Many low-to-mid-end machines that come with Windows Vista pre-installed suffer from exceptionally slow performance with the default Vista settings that come pre-loaded, and laptop manufacturers have offered to "downgrade" laptops to Windows XP—for a price. However, this "price" is unnecessary, as Microsoft allows users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 to freely "downgrade" their software by installing XP and then phoning a Microsoft representative for a new product key. When first released in November 2006, Vista performed file operations such as copying and deletion more slowly than other operating systems. Large
Windows Vista editions edition of Windows Vista to another. However, upgrading from a 32-bit edition to a 64-bit edition or downgrading from 64-bit edition to a 32-bit edition requires a clean install. In addition, not all potential upgrade combinations are supported. The following chart indicates the possible upgrade paths: Notes: Windows Vista editions Windows Vista—a major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system—was available in six different product editions: Starter; Home Basic; Home Premium; Business; Enterprise; and Ultimate. On September 5, 2006, Microsoft announced the USD pricing for editions available through retail channels; the operating system was later made available to retail on