If you've been paying attention to Microsoft support deadlines lately, you'll know that an effective moratorium on Windows XP sales will go into effect on June 30th of this year. After that date, OEMs will be barred from selling copies of Windows XP, except under specific circumstances. For example, OEMs may still sell Windows XP Professional licenses for orders of 25 or more PCs but only if those PCs come with a Windows Vista Business or Ultimate license as well. Essentially, the customer will be allowed to "downgrade" by using the Vista license for the XP installation [1]. As for enterprise volume licenses, those will also include "downgrade rights," so while Microsoft will stop selling XP licenses, a Vista Business or Ultimate volume license can still be used to activate XP installs, provided you supply your own XP installation materials.

Technically, Microsoft is not cutting off support for Windows XP until April 14, 2009 (and will extend support until 2014 for some editions). Still, the coming OEM sales "cutoff" certainly won't make life easy for IT departments, the vast majority of which still run Windows XP. While those who purchase PCs and licenses in bulk won't have much of a problem, small businesses who are used to buying single PCs and licenses might be forced into adopting Vista. Does your business have a plan in place for dealing with the looming deadlines? Let us know in the comments.

For more on the cutoff:
- see this InformationWeek article [2]