Microsoft: 40 million copies of Vista sold

As of last week, Microsoft had sold 40 million copies of Windows Vista, according to company Chairman Bill Gates.

Gates released the latest Vista sales figures during his May 15 morning keynote at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles. Gates said Vista is still selling at two times the rate of Windows XP. He also said that Vista has four times the number of drivers available for it as XP did when Microsoft launched that product in 2001.

Update: As Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger Kay notes, the 40 million is the number of copies Microsoft sold to the channel, not the number of copies sold by the channel and directly to customers.

There are a number of Vista-focused sessions slated for this week's WinHEC. Microsoft officials will be emphasizing the take-up of the Vista platform during its first 100 days of availability at the conference.