HP gets another Year of XP

Microsoft is allowing HP to sell PCs with the Windows XP downgrade for another year.

Microsoft is allowing manufacturers to keep Windows XP alive as a downgrade feature for pre-installed Windows Vista systems.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is one such company, and according to an article over on AppleInsider, Microsoft generously granted the PC giant an extension to its current Windows XP rights beyond that July 31 termination date.

This means that HP can continue to provide the eight-year-old operating system on laptops, workstations, and business desktops for another year.

“Microsoft will allow PC OEMs to structure similar downgrade OS SKUs for Win 7 Professional once available,” said HP.

No formal announcement has been made on the General Availability date for Win 7. The Win 7 Professional to XP Pro downgrade OS will also discontinue on April 30th 2010.

Ultimately, Microsoft may find itself granting more extensions to other manufacturers including Acer and Dell, especially when said manufacturers are looking to release Ubuntu on PCs running customized versions of Linux.

Keeping Windows XP is definitely a good thing, but eventually the old operating system will have to retire, and consumers will have to move on.

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