Campaign seeks to save Windows XP

SAN FRANCISCO, June 30 (UPI) -- A San Francisco editor for a popular tech site says he is leading a campaign to stop Microsoft from discontinuing sales of Windows XP this week.

Galen Gruman, an executive editor of Web site InfoWorld, said his online petition urging Microsoft not to discontinue sales of XP to retailers and major PC manufacturers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Monday.

Microsoft released Windows Vista as a successor to XP last year, but Gruman said he and others have resisted the upgrade.

"I think the issue is that it's not meaningfully better than XP," Gruman said.

He said Vista's improvements in security and other areas are not significant enough to justify the inconveniences involved in switching to Vista, including several technical glitches found in early versions and the system's steep hardware requirements.

Microsoft has said there will be some exceptions to its ban on XP sales, including deals made with manufacturers of computers that do not meet the system requirements for Vista. Security updates and other software for the operating system will continue to be produced through 2014, the company said.

Gruman said he plans to mail a printed version of the online petition to the home of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

"Maybe the big stack of paper will drive it home," Gruman said.