PC makers no longer allowed to preinstall Windows XP on new netbooks as of October

This week, Microsoft officials reminded customers and partners of that deadline date – October 22, 2010. As of that date, “OEMs will no longer be able to pre-install Windows XP Home on new netbook PCs,” Microsoft officials said. (Microsoft announced this cutoff date back in 2008, when Microsoft called netbooks ultra-low-cost PCs, or ULPCs)

There are still a number of XP-based netbooks for sale at retail. But the number of Windows 7 netbooks has been picking up since Windows 7 launched in October. According to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, as of April 2010, 81 percent of netbooks sold at retail in the U.S. came with Windows 7 preinstalled (according to a new post on the Microsoft “Blogging Windows” site).