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It's the latest embarrassing setback for Vista, which has failed to take off with businesses and consumers since its January launch. Earlier this week, Microsoft started offering OEMs the option to downgrade from Vista to XP.

Microsoft claims it decided to extend XP sales in response to feedback from computer manufacturers, who say there are customers who still want to buy the older operating system, which is now more than six-years-old.

Vista has been dogged with performance and compatibility problems, that Microsoft has made efforts to address with hotfixes ahead of the early 2008 release of Service Pack 1.

The company has downplayed dissatisfaction

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with Vista, claiming it is the fastest-selling operating system in the history of Microsoft. As of the end of June, Microsoft had sold more than 60 million Windows Vista licenses.

Microsoft said the top 50 consumer software applications now have a Vista-compatible version and it provides support for more than 2.2 million devices.

Microsoft also claims it has historically made its older operating system available to customers for two years after the new one is introduced, but it decided to shorten that period to one year with Vista.

"We were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista," says Mike Nash, a Microsoft corporate vice president.

Microsoft has forecast that XP will account for about 22% of Windows sales in the current year to June with Vista comprising the remainder. The company plans to update this forecast when it announces quarterly results in October.

The company also said it plans to extend sales of the most basic Windows XP Starter Edition for very low cost computers in emerging markets until June 30, 2010. It had also planned to stop sales of that system in January.

Is Windows XP actually better than Vista? Look out for PC Pro's 12-page feature, XP vs Vista, in the next issue - out on sale 18 October.