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Amid significant customer demand, the computer maker said on Thursday that it has returned to offering the older Windows version as an option on some of its consumer PCs.

Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft's mainstream launch of the operating system in January. However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas.

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said on its Ideas in Action page. Users get to vote on various suggestions, and the notion of bringing back XP got 10,000 "points," making it among the most popular requests but well below top picks such as adding Linux or OpenOffice.org to its PCs.

Windows XP systems became scarce, but not impossible to find, after Vista arrived. For example, Hewlett-Packard said it would continue selling XP on some machines aimed at small and midsize businesses, while CompUSA still stocks a couple of business-oriented XP systems in its retail stores. Lenovo has also continued shipping XP on many of its business systems.

Starting immediately, Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops.

Earlier this month, Dell added XP back as an option for small-business customers, but at the time, it said it would not add it back for home users.

"Dell does not have plans to launch Windows XP for home users as the preference, and demand is for the 'latest and greatest' technology, which includes Windows Vista," Tom West, director of small-business marketing at Dell, said in a blog posting at the time.

Analysts say Dell's move is not a good sign for Windows Vista.

"That there is remaining demand from some segment of (the) consumer market points to the inability of Vista to resonate with consumers," IDC analyst Richard Shim said.

There was an initial bump for Vista sales right after its launch, Shim said, but some of that may have been from consumers who delayed purchasing a PC late last year. Sales in the later part of the first quarter were less strong, he said. The overall response to Vista will become clearer throughout the year, he said.

Current Analysis research director Samir Bhavnani said most of the demand for XP he sees is from small businesses, rather than consumers.

"They know that XP works," Bhavnani said. "It's not that they don't want to upgrade to Vista. They just don't want to upgrade to Vista yet."

In a sense, the issue isn't the relatively small number of PC buyers demanding XP, but it's whether Vista is having any affect on the PC market as a whole.

In announcing PC sales data, Gartner said this week that Vista's launch "had very limited impact on overall worldwide shipment demand on a quarterly basis."

Bhavnani blamed some of the lackluster results on a lack of marketing, noting he sees more ads for Apple than for Vista.

"It's been a very soft launch," Bhavnani said. "I think you will see Vista create additional demand for PCs in the back half of this year."

Microsoft product manager Michael Burk said in a statement: "Dell is responding appropriately to a small minority of customers that had this specific request. But, as they have said before, the vast majority of consumers want the latest and greatest technology, and that includes Windows Vista."

The software maker has said it will stop selling Windows XP to large PC makers by January. Smaller computer sellers, known as system builders, will be able to sell XP machines for an additional year.

In a statement last week, Microsoft said such a move is normal after a new operating system comes out.

"Windows Vista is safer, easier to use, better connected and more entertaining than any operating system we've ever released, and we're encouraged by the positive customer response we've seen to date," the company said. "It's standard practice to allow OEMs, retailers and system builders to continue offering the previous version of Windows for a certain period of time after a new version is released."

RThurmont wrote:This is actually slightly old news-the announcement of this came out a few days ago IIRC. However, it is interesting, in that it demonstrates just how terrified a lot of consumers are of running Vista. I don't recall any previous Windows release that was adopted with such little enthusiasm.

I personally really was looking forward to using some of Vista's features, but the lack of backwards compatibility, licensing restrictions, high cost, and mucho DRM have made it less than appealing from my perspective. As little as one year ago, I geniunely anticipated that I would be using Vista ATM.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I kind of hope they hang onto the XP option for a while, because when I finally get a new PC, I'd rather transition over from ME to XP rather than jump straight into Vista.

Netko wrote:And because XP was so good the expectations for Vista were high, and it doesn't measure up. Sure, it has some new nice things, and once the drivers get sorted out (which should already be done for current hardware but alas ...) there really is no reason not to go for it over XP, especially for a new computer. But, it doesn't really have anything killer to offer, and at launch it had XP RTM driver and software compatibility, while people expected XP SP2's. And thats hurting it right now, although not as much as some people would seemingly like, as noted above.

Netko wrote:So, sure, right now XP might be better from a compatibility standpoint, but the big question is how long will it continue to be such? With current computers having usage lives of 3-4 or more years, going now with Vista might be prudent. Hell, a gig of RAM is cheaper then a Vista upgrade ( ). And the software compatibility problems with Vista seem to be relatively minor, and, most of the time, have workarounds (since most of them happen because of UAC and related technologies).

His Divine Shadow wrote:I found vista to be a bit slow at times. On my brand fucking new E6600 Core 2 Duo system I will not tolerate that!

His Divine Shadow wrote:I found vista to be a bit slow at times. On my brand fucking new E6600 Core 2 Duo system I will not tolerate that!

SirNitram wrote:

His Divine Shadow wrote:I found vista to be a bit slow at times. On my brand fucking new E6600 Core 2 Duo system I will not tolerate that!

Have you tried turning off Aero? It sucks down CPU time.

His Divine Shadow wrote:What really pissed me off when I tried Vista was how when I wanted to do something... lets say "administrative" it would always display a fucking dialouge box asking me this or that. After the millionth dialouge box or so I wasn't that into Vista anymore.

Arrow wrote:

His Divine Shadow wrote:I found vista to be a bit slow at times. On my brand fucking new E6600 Core 2 Duo system I will not tolerate that!

And how much ram did you get with your system?

His Divine Shadow wrote:

Arrow wrote:

His Divine Shadow wrote:I found vista to be a bit slow at times. On my brand fucking new E6600 Core 2 Duo system I will not tolerate that!

And how much ram did you get with your system?

2 gigabytes