But some are supportive of Vista. This from Zygote, posted January 21:

"Have any of you nay-sayers actually used Vista for any length of time? Remember the learning curve when we went from 98/2000 to XP; Same thing, put some effort in and you might not be so negative about it. I've had Vista on my laptop virtually since launch and I haven't had any major issues with it."

Indeed there may be a sharp increase in Vista adoption at the end of this month when Microsoft releases Service Pack 1, which many businesses and organisations traditionally wait for before upgrading.

But in a Computerworld Australia poll asking when respondent's companies will upgrade to Windows Vista and Office 2007, 70 per cent said they will look at alternatives before making a decision.

In response to the question of whether discontinuing XP could throw more people over to Apple or Linux operating systems, or whether XP would quietly go back on sale like Windows 98 did after the less than successful Windows ME release, Microsoft's spokesperson declined to comment.

The company did however, insist that the adoption of Vista was well on track and in line with it's projections.

"Globally we can confirm there have been over 100 million licenses sold and more than 42 million PCs now licensed under volume licensing agreements."

"Overall the business adoption of Windows Vista in Australia is on a normal trajectory at this point in its lifecycle, at a rate that is similar to past releases. We are pleased to see positive market indicators that point towards adoption and deployment continuing to grow.

"We're seeing positive indicators that we're already starting to move from the early adoption phase into the mainstream and that more and more businesses are beginning their planning and deployment of Windows Vista."

Still, vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and more recently, NEC, all offer the opportunity to downgrade to XP pro.

NEC stated that customer demand for the XP downgrade varied, with large corporates generally slower to adopt Vista than the SMB market.