There’s some bad news for folks thinking they can buy any PC with Vista Business or Ultimate and downgrade them to XP. As it turns out, Microsoft has put limits on the types of PCs that are allowed to be downgraded.

The European Commission feels there should be more competition in the technology sector. The Commission also feels Microsoft’s anti-trust practices are hindering competition in the European Union.

As many of you may know, Microsoft has announced plans to stop the sales of XP license to all OEMs such as Dell by the end of the month June 30th. This might cause some of you to panic as it would limit your operating system purchase to Vista only.

Microsoft has indicated that those who have decided to skip Vista and wait for Windows 7 could be at a higher risk for facing problems. These problems are said to vary from security issues to forestalling the inevitable issues one would face on Vista.

Last week Microsoft filed lawsuits to 21 resellers for software piracy in the US. Considering software piracy is on the rise and eating into Microsoft’s profits, it’s a smart move to start hitting back to show the seriousness of the matter.

I talked about people petitioning against Microsoft’s decision to retire XP by the end of the month yesterday. Now big sites are getting in on the action creating petitions for users to sign to make things more official.

There seems to be a growing number of consumers who apparently don’t wish for Vista and want XP. Petition groups are forming around the Internet. People are also calling in to Microsoft support lines and asking that the life of XP be extended beyond its expiration date this month.

Today Microsoft announced that it will be extending XP licensing to Nettop devices, which are essentially low powered desktops. This is a surprising move leaving many scratching their collective heads.

Microsoft in the past have been the industry leader when it came to leading the pack on what should be supported and what should not. However as of late it seems Microsoft has been largely getting dragged around by the industry and not the other way around.

Touch screen technology on CE devices up till recently have been a mere novelty with nobody taking the technology seriously; that was until the iPhone was released. The iPhone put touch screen technology in the forefront and brought mainstream acceptance as a method of navigating a graphical user interface.

Yes you read it right, Microsoft is telling people to upgrade to Vista now instead of waiting for Windows 7 because it would help ‘ease’ their way into Windows 7 down the line. What I want to ask is, easier for who the businesses or Microsoft?

Is this a case of sacrificing one offspring over another? It sure seems that way, with Microsoft pointing out XP’s flaws in order to make Vista look light years better. However, some believe these XP “flaws” are actually inaccurate.

Remember that cool concept Bill Gates himself made a big deal two years ago during Vista’s big push, called Xbox Live Anywhere? Most people assumed Anywhere-became-vaporware, with very little news or update released at all for sometime now.

Can you believe it, Windows Vista help the environment? Yes I know, It’s hard to swallow but according to one IT director this is one of the main reasons they are migrating to Windows Vista.

Symantec the software security firm has publicly expressed disappointment over Vista’s lackluster sales this Monday. It’s really not all that surprising because if Microsoft doesn’t make money neither does Symantec.