When PCWorld researched this, sales and support reps for both Microsoft and major PC manufacturers told us two different stories.Ī Dell representative said that to downgrade from Windows 8, you needed to buy a new, unused copy of Windows 7-thus making the whole point of having downgrade rights pointless. We ran a quick comparison survey of machines from HP, Dell, and Toshiba, and found that an upgrade to the Pro version of Windows 8 increased system prices anywhere between $35 and $100.Īnd even when the price delta is small enough to justify buying a Windows 8 Pro machine (complete with downgrade rights!), the downgrade process can still be difficult to figure out. Unfortunately, machines loaded with Windows 8 Pro will demand a pricing premium over similarly spec’d Windows 8 systems.