More bugs and delays for Microsoft's Vista

Taiwan PC makers report new delays in the RTM (release to manufacturing) version of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)'s Vista, which they were supposed to get this week. Manufacturers are now being told it will be at least mid-November before that release. The reason: more bugs were found that could paralyze an upgrade to a Vista-capable Windows XP OS, according to a story in today's DigiTimes Systems.

The RTM build 5824 was scheduled for release this week, after the number of bugs found in the Windows Vista Release Candidate 2 (RC2) version dropped from 1,450 to around 500, according to sources quoted in the DigiTimes story, but additional bugs that could paralyze an upgraded Vista-capable Windows XP OS halted those plans. The new build is now RTM build 5840 and Microsoft promised to continue to test the new version until its release in November.

Even though Microsoft alerted PC makers to the delay, it assured them that it still planned to launch the business-use and home-use Vista OS by November 2006 and January 2007, respectively.

Now in addition to fears that Vista may block your security programs from being fully functional, you may find that an upgrade locks up your Vista-capable Windows XP OS. You may not want to jump to upgrade until you're sure all these kinks have been worked out.