The Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission is investigating a complaint against Microsoft made by the Taiwanese Consumer Foundation, which claims the company is effectively using its monopoly to force sales of Vista.

The Foundation claims its research shows 56 per cent of people buying new machines, with Vista on, would later put XP on their new box and that 67 per cent thought Microsoft should continue to offer XP. XP is still available in Taiwan on some new, lower-spec machines.

But an anti-trust lawyer speaking to Bloomberg said it would be a strange interpretation of competition law to say that a company had to continue selling a product for ever.

Taiwanese authorities have tussled with Microsoft before - in 2003 the company settled with the Fair Trade Commission after a year-long investigation. If found guilty Microsoft could be fined 25m Taiwanese Dollars or £427,000. ®

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