Office 2000: Mainstream support ended in 2004. Extended support ends July 14, 2009.

Windows 2000 Server: Mainstream support ended in 2005. Extended support ends July 13, 2010.

Office 2007: Mainstream support ends April 10, 2012. Extended support ends April 11, 2017.

Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Ultimate: Mainstream support ends April 10, 2012. Extended Support doesn't yet have a deadline.

Windows Vista Business: Mainstream support ends April 2012. Extended support ends April 11, 2017.

See complete list in the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Index

So they have announced Office 2007 eos before it's successor has been announced or released.

Wonder if there will be a successor or whether they are considering their cloud computing solution at that time ?

I don't know what's going on at Microsoft at the moment. The latest info is about Windows 7 which is due for release next week. Users who have been running Win7 Beta have been told that the must roll back the OS to Vista before they can install the full release of 7. There is also an added note that they will not be building an XP to Win7 updater.

There are more people using XP than Vista. Maybe you could format your PC and do a clean install, I don't know. Your only other options are to either upgrade XP to Vista first or buy a new PC with Win7 already installed.

I don't understand why they are pushing a new OS when Vista has not been accepted by the masses. For example, our visitor stats show that less than 30% are using Vista and over 62% are using XP. If my PC hadn't have packed in I would have been quite happy to carry on with XP. I don't like Vista and would happly downgrade.

From what I've read the Windows7 / Vista Kernel is completely different from XP. Therefore a full clean installation is the only option.

Probably the best bet anyway with a new OS. XP to Vista was dodgy to say the least.

I will stay with XP because it's never given me any trouble and I don't want to have to buy new printers and scanner, etc because of compatibility problems.

Currently on mine it all works - which is more than I do