Microsoft can only compete against Linux with XP. Good move MS, good move.

It's limited to hardware installs on low end laptops and UMPCs though. You won't be able to buy an OEM copy after 30 June as far as I know.

You Guys forget one laptop. JISUS (no kidding!) I just came across this when i was searching for LED products. The website of the company is www.vanderled.com and their direct product page(and online store) is at:

[vanderled.com]

i asked the guys at vanderled why it was called that way. and they told me it ment " WOW" in african. i searched for it and it seems it is from a zulu language or something.

If OEM copy sales are were to go on and the MS vow to continue XP sales until the next version of Windows is released is Vista a lame duck OS???

Why limit it to budget laptops? Just keep selling the dang OS, at least online.

XP should be renamed "Windows Classic".

Can't blame Microsoft for keeping the cash cow alive a few more years.

And Vista "Diet Windows"

I miss XP.... but i dont miss my craptastic desktop that shat all over me during my 2nd year of college and forced me to buy a vista PC. Vista pista me off at first but its gettin better.. i think.

@kibets: XP can also be renamed "the big shoes Vista would love to fill".

@DucatiGuy: Diet makes me think thin light or even a generally accepted soda - they are always out of stock at my supermarket even though it has the same shelf space.

I think Vista might be thought of as the "Extra Calories Windows" or "Windows Fat"

Not selling Windows XP is just going to encourage people to either use pirated copies if they can't buy it or to explore other OS's such as Linux or OSX.

i have xp home on my eee, and i am using unbutu on my big machine now.
it is kinda weird though, but i am going to stick with it for a few weeks, and see what happens. as i get better at figuring out where everything lives it may be a viable OS to use on a daily basis

I've been using XP since Jan 2002, replacing HORRIBLE ME on my HP desktop, loved it and have been using it on my many desktops and laptops since.

And when my brother upgraded his (crappy, he's a poor high school kid) desktop's components from Pentium 4 and 1gb of ram to Core 2 Duo and 2gb of ram and installed Vista and it ran Crysis SLOWER than with XP and his previous config. it just makes me appreciate XP even more.

Can't believe you've lasted this long and given me such great service!

Windows XP. The decade-long operating system.

Oh, so this has nothing to do with Vista being craptastic, as rightfully stated on the latest Mac vs PC ads.
Ok.
(notice I don't even like Macs. But I'd rather give OSX a shot than going back to Vista.

@Sleeper_Service: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

They were gonna stop selling it about a year after Vista, but they realized that they cnt stop selling a good OS untill they release another good OS, so it will be cut off a year after Windows 7 instead of Vista.

planned obsolescence.

This way everybody will have to upgrade to Vista - and then when the "new" OS (Windows 7) comes out - everybody will rush to that.

That will guarantee at least two sales instead of people just staying with XP until Windows 7 gets the kinks worked out.

XP = Xtra Power!!! TO THE MOON PEOPLE!

Maybe XP is the pre-release version of the "new" Windows 7.

I can't say that I like vista I really wanted to like it but it is just so annoying. I don't like how it asks me to do anything, I would rather have the ability to mess something up than have to deal with all the "cancel or allow." I have xp still on my desktop and love it. Maybe one day vista will have enough mods out there to fill the xp shoes.

I just do NOT understand all these people having issues with Vista. I mean, I realize there are a few little quirks, but as a whole it works great and as far as program loading and operation, is quicker than XP. I am running Vista fluently on a mid-level Compaq laptop(AMD TK-57, 2GB RAM, Geforce 7000m) and honestly like it. I do, however, have an XP partition just in case, but find myself rarely using it.

From Neil Gaiman's journal:
"Monday, March 31, 2008
Airport Blogging
Sitting in an airport, getting really sick of Windows Vista on a laptop. It doesn't work -- I'm tired of waiting seconds for things to appear on the screen, of taking half a minute or more for something that ought to happen instantly to occur. The poor computer obviously can't run Vista, and shouldn't have been Vista certified, and the author isn't impressed with the way that a number of things that were easy in XP have got harder, nor with the fact it took most of a day for Vista to run a search on the hard disk to find a mislaid introduction I was working on, nor with its refusal to read or copy a bunch of files on a DVD Dave McKean burned for me (I wound up dragging them from the DVD to one of Dave's macbooks, from there to my iPod and from my iPod to the computer).

Have any of your readers suggested cures or workarounds for the Vista problem you describe in the 3-27 blog (sluggish text)? If so, please share -- many of us have the same problem.

A few people have written in to suggest I get extra memory, and I might, but I'm more likely to either a) say sod it and get an Airbook. It's heavier than the Panasonic W7 and doesn't have a disk drive, but it has a nice operating system that works or b) keep the computer and wander over to Linux Ubuntu.

My other solution is to warn the many people who read this blog that they may want to avoid Windows Vista."

@MirDreams:

Nice, quote a blog that blames Vista for poor performance, while giving no details on his computer at all.

That'll prove so much.

Long live XP. If it isn't broken don't fix it.

@Kyang: Haha I agree as well

I think my biggest problem with vista really is that it came on a ultra portable laptop which doesn't offer the screen real estate that the os craves. I probably wouldn't mind it on my desktop where I've got tons of room and a ton of power. I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else but I can't seem to break the habbit of hitting windows key + r for the run command which doesn't launch it anymore but on xp I use it all the time.

@cyborgtroy:

I'm afraid so. National mourning has been declared.

Actually, in fairness, Vista is OK as long as you don't try to run it on an underpowered machine.

Which, of course, means anything released less than 18 months ago. Aha. Aha. Aha. *cough*

@Kyang:

I can see why Gaiman didn't bother with details on the PC and blames MS. The machine was "Vista Certified".

My buddy's Dell laptop runs like crap under Vista and stutters when playing music thanks to DRM.
Under XP it runs like a dream but he can't get the wireless to work.

Frustrating for him.

This is good news for me, I want a new laptop and do NOT want Vista.

@Kyang: @maier_m: If you read properly, he did give details on the laptop. It is a Panasonic W7 with 1gb of ram. If you guys are going to criticize the reason Vista doesn't run well with 1gb and requires 2gb to run properly, you should notice that is the point the blog was trying to make. Computers with 1gb of ram should not be Vista certified.

@tommo: XP is broken_

this means that there will be a Win XP Service Pack 4 at some point_

Just goes to show how great an operating system Windows made with XP, staying relevant for a decade. And all of that regardless of people wanting to hang on to cheap hardware and complain about the latest Windows release.

Yeah, it was inevitable when people started downgrading from Vista back to XP. It's familiar territory and they don't need a supercomputer to run it. Yes, Vista is pretty, but it's NOT XP. It requires better hardware to run and when it first came out, it did NOT play well with others. No driver support = FAIL. The damage has been done and it will take a long time for people to decide to go to Vista. More likely, if XP will last past the release of the next OS, they'll wait for that one and just skip Vista altogether. Sounds like another WinME to me...

@godwhacker: You won't be disappointed. I've been using Ubuntu for about 2 months now and I LOVE it. Once I buy and new HD for my desktop I'm throwing ubuntu on it too and I'm gonna only use windows for my games. If you ever have any trouble the Ubuntu forums are your friend.

@vertibraker: You missed the point I was trying to make. Even if Gaiman is a science fiction author (okay, he's much more than that) that doesn't necessarily make him a computer expert. The typical consumer doesn't take/have the time (or often have the know-how) to look beyond that MS "seal of approval" pasted on the machine. In short, I blame microsoft.