An era ended Monday. The first day of Steve Ballmer’s occupation of the corner office at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA., plus marked the last day for Windows XP.

June 30 was the “end of sales” deadline for the venerable version of the Windows operating system, which Microsoft is trying to replace with Windows Vista. But in a letter to customers, Bill Veghte, a senior vice president at Microsoft, emphasized three options for customers who “need” Windows XP on new boxes.

First and foremost are the so-called “downgrade rights” available to Vista Business and Vista Ultimate customers. In addition, business customers that license Windows through Microsoft’s volume licensing programs can get downgrade rights.

Downgrade Rights

Computer sellers like Dell, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo are offering downgrade rights on their PCs. “This is a great value considering it lets you use Windows XP on new PCs today whether you need it, and next manufacture the move to take

advantage of the additional capabilities of Windows Vista when you are ready, without having to pay for an upgrade,” Veghte wrote.

The problem for Microsoft is that many enterprises will never be ready, given the concerns businesses have with the stability and reliability of Vista, plus the fact that much of the hardware that businesses own need upgrades to run Vista.

The opposition to Vista fueled a campaign to get Microsoft to extend XP sales. At InfoWorld, Executive Editor Galen Gruman created an online petition drive to “Save XP” and the tech newsweekly last week sent Microsoft the petition with more than 200,000 signatures.

Waiting for Windows 7?

“The typical interval from the introduction of a new version of Windows to the end-sale term for the previous version is two years. Given the disruptive nature of many Vista upgrades, we feel that Microsoft should continue to invent Windows XP available…

Orginal post by Top Tech News