Windows XP gets another stay of execution

Microsoft has extended the final OEM and reseller delivery date for the Windows XP from January 31, 2009 to May 30, 2009.

The cut off date for PC makers to obtain licenses for the software was January 31, 2009. Still, vendors have to place their orders before the official cutoff date of January 31, but they dont have to take delivery until May. Microsoft granted the reprieve largely because of customer's preference for XP.

Microsoft also recently extended the Vista "downgrade" deadline for OEMs to July 31 and netbooks and low-cost laptops will be able to run XP until at least June 2010, so chances are you'll be able to get XP until Windows 7 ships.

PC makers largely stopped selling XP installed on desktops and laptops in late 2007, but they are available to customers who order online or have a business account with OEMs such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard. Recently, Dell offered customers, the option to get Windows XP instead of Vista on many models.

If you are an XP lover and have bought a Vista system, you have two choices to get XP:

* To buy an XP license before June 30 and install it over Vista, and

* To "downgrade" to XP Professional using an XP Professional install disc or a "downgrade" XP Pro install disc supplied by the PC maker

Downgrade option is available only to Vista Ultimate or Vista Business users

A colleague and friend just hates Vista, probably because he doesn't like to learn anything new.

So he is currently looking for a laptop with XP. I looked around a bit on the net, and it is not easy to find unless, as the article states, it is on a custom order.

I have done a couple of XP clean installs for him, but have stopped short of offering to do it again. The last one was on a Dell laptop. The tricky part was that it had a standalone media player, whereby one could play DVDs without booting up the computer. It was on a separate partition, which also contained all the drivers for video, etc. I foolishly didn't save that partition on the first go round, then had to get help of a tekkie friend to go back and reconstruct it. Wow, that was a royal pain in the a$$! ! !

OK that was off-topic a bit, but interesting since I have just been talking about this in the last couple of weeks.