It's only a stopgap measure, everyone knows. It's a temporary reprieve for XP. Just the same, netbooks are allowing XP, the operating system Microsoft tore from its loyal public last year, to make a comeback.

Last year I tried to get a new computer but was so badly abused by Vista I took it back and reformatted my old computer so I could avoid the demanding operating system.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) seems to be positioning itself as the de facto corporate champion of saving XP and saving its customers from Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) much-maligned Vista operating system. Dell announced it would charge $20 to $50 extra to some customers to "downgrade" to Windows XP. Dell even puts the "downgrade" in quotes, the idea is so ridiculous. In reality the fee is more like $100-150 because many customers will have to upgrade their version of Vista to downgrade to XP.

On the surface, this extra charge may sound like bad news, that getting XP is going to be even more difficult. But I see this as a way for Dell to ensure there is still some legitimate way to keep getting XP even after June 30, when Microsoft wants to kill it off.

There's been much speculation about whether Microsoft would relent and postpone the demise of XP another time. I also take this news to mean that it will not. Time's up. In some ways the deadline was just moved up to June 18--that's when Dell stopped pre-installing XP.

A recent study by Evans Data Corporation shows that developers don't like Vista any more than the rest of us. Six times as many are clinging to XP than switching to Vista. Only 8% of developers are working on programs to run on Vista, compared with 50% who are writing for Windows XP. That's not good news for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), who hopes that its customers will grudgingly tolerate the withdrawal of XP on June 30.

Many are begging Microsoft to relent, especially InfoWorld. The developers do plan on doing more work for the troubled operating system next year, but still not as many as are hanging onto XP. Next year, 24% of developers expect to target Vista while 29% will still work with XP.

Evans data doesn't say how much the Vista disaster has helped Linux and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), but it's clear Vista has sent many fleeing. eWeek reported last week that Apple now has a 14% market share -- nearly four times what it had in 2005. Using data from NPD Group, eWeek points out that Apple sells two out of three computers in the $1,000 and above category. That's largely because Macs are still way, way more expensive than PCs. If Apple ever got around to offering a computer at a price the masses were willing to pay, Microsoft might be in trouble. Microsoft may not hear the complaints about its operating system, but it understands that people want to pay less for computers.

We've known for a long time that Vista has been aggravating Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) customers, both personal and corporate. More than 200,000 aggrieved customers have signed InfoWorld's Save XP petition to keep selling the old operating system past its current deadline of June 30. BusinessWeek reports today that Wall Street is increasingly concerned that Vista may even hurt Microsoft's bottom line.

It would take an issue of monumental proportions to move a behemoth like Microsoft. Could Vista be that bad? BusinessWeek's Aaron Ricadela cites a Sanford Bernstein report by Charles Di Bona estimating that Vista will clip Microsoft earnings by $395 million or 2 cents a share for FY2009. That's a lot of money, but Microsoft has earnings of over $14 billion.

The issue is that businesses are becoming wary of all the problems they've heard about (memory hogging, incompatibility with software and hardware, pestering prompts, propensity for crashes). So they're increasingly deciding to stick it out and wait for the next operating system, Vista 7, which won't be out until 2010 or 2011 (and then, like Vista, may take time to work out the kinks). Bernstein did a survey and found that only about a quarter of IT pros expect to be using Vista by 2011, down from about two-thirds a year ago.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) filed more than 50 suits alleging software piracy against individuals and companies located in the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia, including some who sell on online auction sites, such as eBay, Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY). The suits target companies that sell illegal copies of Windows, Office, Excel and Publisher.

Microsoft says the suits are not only to protect their business interests. The company also want to protect consumers from identity theft. At the same time it announced the lawsuits, Microsoft warned consumers that it uncovered code embedded in counterfeit copies of its programs that can track a user's visits and key strokes. That means counterfeit copies with this embedded code could potentially reveal your key strokes when entering sensitive financial data or passwords. This information could then be used for identify theft.

Microsoft said Vista will be armed with even stronger protections than XP or earlier version of its operating systems. Windows Vista is programmed to impair functions if a customer doesn't activate the software with a genuine product key.