Can we take credit for this? For months we've been advising enterprises to ditch Windows XP in favor of Vista (making sure to back it with sufficient hardware, of course). And in spite of non-stop headlines about Windows 7, it appears to be working: According to a new survey, Vista adoption grew four percent between July, 2008, and March, 2009.

That's not much, but it does bring the total of Vista-equipped IT departments to nearly 12 percent, the survey said. Here's the scoop, as reported by InternetNews.com:

The underlying message is that, like it or not, XP's days are numbered.

"While Windows Vista use grew by 4.6 percentage points ... Windows XP use declined by 4.1 percentage points over the same time," said the report, co-authored by Benjamin Gray, senior analyst at Forrester Research.

Of course, as the article points out, with nearly 40 percent of IT shops planning to deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010, this Vista "comeback" may be short-lived.

But it's gratifying to see that more CIOs and IT decision-makers have come to recognize Vista's benefits--not the least of which is that it offers the path of least resistance for migration to Windows 7.

Interestingly, the report also found a decline in Linux use in corporate environments. So despite all the ranting you hear in countless online forums ("Windows sux! We use Linux."), the reality is that enterprises almost exclusively choose some version of Windows.

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