Many people have slagged Windows Vista for a variety of reasons. New PC’s that normally would have Vista installed can be bought with a Windows XP “downgrade”. And now that Vista Service Pack 1 is out the playing field will once again be covered in a foggy glow, and we can expect a rash of fresh calls to continue buying XP in favour of Vista (more about the Vista service pack next week).

However Vista has been available for over a year, and XP sales are due to stop soon. So what happens when you simply can’t buy XP any more? What are you supposed to to do then? Here’s the breakdown, and why business managers should care.

According to the Microsoft Windows Life Cycle Policy page, you’ll have a tougher time buying Windows XP after June 30th, 2008. The non-tech explanation of that page is like this: If you buy all your computers from a major manufacturer like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, etc, OR if you buy all your software off the shelf at your local computer, technology, or office supply retailer, then you won’t be able to buy Windows XP in any version after June 30th 2008.

On the other hand, if you buy your computers or software from smaller system builder like CPG Systems, then you can continue to get XP pre-installed on your new computer until January 31st, 2009. The key to remember here is that this is only for new systems (purchased within the past 90 days), and that the installation must be done by a registered Microsoft Partner. You can’t walk up and buy a copy of XP to take home and install yourself on your 3-year old computer.

For business managers this means that the crunch time is now. You need to know what you’re going to do when your favourite operating system can’t be acquired anymore. As I’ve discussed here in previous posts, Vista isn’t all bad if you know how to manage it properly.  If you’re running a medium-sized operation (say, 15 computers or more) and have no Vista installed anywhere, you may want to think about buying a single Vista machine really soon so you can start doing some testing.

There’s nothing worse than being forced into a migration, only to find out too late that there are compatibility issues. The end is coming, and neither you nor I can change that. So talk to your technical support provider about having a plan, or you may find yourself wondering where to go begin.