According to Microsoft, Neogroponte (chairman of the OLPC) misspoke when he said the new XO laptop would feature a dual-boot system that would be able to boot both Linux and Windows. In a true dual-boot system, on boot-up of the hardware, one is able to choose between one of multiple operating systems located on the hard disk. In the current scenario,  the software giant and the One Laptop Per Child organization are working on a method that will allow a light-weight version of Windows to successfully boot off of an SD card.

"While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop," a Microsoft representative said in a statement Thursday. Microsoft went on to imply that Negroponte should not necessarily represent Microsoft and its ties to the OLPC, stating "Microsoft recommends contacting the company directly for any further updates."

To some, booting Windows on the OLPC laptop from an SD card instead of booting directly off disk is probably just splitting hairs as to whether or not one can officially call this "dual-booting." MIcrosoft is adamant though that no one confuse the process with dual-booting, that Windows will be a separate entity residing on an SD memory card, rather than installed directly to the laptop, side-by-side with the Fedora-based Linux operating system. Microsoft's plan was always to boot the Windows operating system from a 2-gigabyte flash card, since it needs more than 1gb of flash memory to run even light-weight versions of the OS and its software, such as Microsoft Office.

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