As you may know Microsoft is to stop selling Windows XP at the end of June, but Dell is going to exploit a loophole in Microsoft’s licensing which will allow it to ‘downgrade’ Vista installations on new machines to XP Professional.

Other manufacturers may follow, and Microsoft is said to be quite happy with this situation as the sales will still count as Vista sales, boosting the poor  figures of the product.

Microsoft is still under intense pressure to extend the shelf-life of XP past its current June deadline.