Computing | by Samuel Axon |
The previous end date was January 31st, but Microsoft agreed to humor vendors and manufacturers who still see demand.
If you're a PC user but you're not a big fan of Windows Vista, you'll be happy to hear that the book isn't closed on Windows XP just year. Microsoft has announced it will continue distributing licenses for the aged operating system to vendors up through May 30th, rather than through the original end date of January 31st. Keep in mind, this is just to retailers and computer manufacturers, and they'll still have to place the orders before the end of next month.
And even after May, XP will prove hard to kill, kind of like Rasputin. Microsoft will still sell copies of it exclusively with netbooks too weak to run Windows Vista. That will continue into 2010, after Windows 7's supposed launch. So one way or another it looks like you'll be able to skip out on Vista entirely and jump straight to Windows 7. If you want to, that is.