Oct. 22 is the same date set by Microsoft Corp. when original equipment manufacturers would no longer preinstall the operating system on new netbooks.

Dell said in its blog site on Tuesday that it also will no longer give customers the option to have the Microsoft program by late September, though Windows XP driver support will continue to be available until December 2012.

Only qualified customers can get systems with Windows XP through Dell's Custom Factory Integration service while those who order new machines with Windows 7 Professional or higher can run XP applications in Windows XP mode, according to a posting on Direct2Dell.

Microsoft will also end Windows XP Service Pack 2 support on July 13 while support for the SP3 version will end on April 2014. Onwards from that date, Microsoft will no longer provide updates and patches for the operating system.