Microsoft has given another reprieve to its faithful old operating system Windows XP in a sign of the lingering difficulties facing its successor Windows Vista, dpa reported.
The software giant announced over the weekend that it would allow computer makers to receive copies of the old system until the end of May 2009, which is shortly before the successor to Windows Vista is widely expected to hit the market.
A previous extension allowed computer makers to install XP on low cost laptops and netbooks through 2010.
Windows Vista has been widely criticized for hogging system resources and its adoption by businesses has been especially slow compared to previous versions of Windows.
Microsoft originally planned to retire Windows XP in January 2008, but extended XP licenses when many manufacturers used a clause in their agreements with Microsoft that allowed them to downgrade Vista computers to run XP.