A new survey provides more evidence that many companies are planning to skip Windows Vista altogether. The economic downturn is reinforcing the trend by making companies much more cautious about spending money on big information-technology upgrades, according to results of the survey by longtime industry analyst Laura DiDio.

Forty-six percent of 700 surveyed executives and IT managers said their companies would upgrade directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 when it's available -- avoiding Windows Vista in the process. The survey, from Sunbelt Software and DiDio's Information Technology Intelligence Corp., found that about 27 percent of companies expect their 2009 IT budgets to decrease.

"Microsoft is getting hit by the downturn in the economy and the fact that XP has a lot of life left in it," DiDio said via phone.

There was some good news for Windows Vista in the study. Of the 10 percent of surveyed companies that had moved to Windows Vista, nearly 60 percent rated its performance, reliability and security good, very good or excellent. That suggests the negative perceptions of Windows Vista aren't necessarily justified anymore. Microsoft has released a string of fixes and improvements since Vista's rocky debut two years ago.

Among the companies that had shifted to Windows Vista, about 19 percent described it as "unsatisfactory." In many cases, that was due to incompatible business applications, DiDio said.

DiDio said the survey was independent, without vendor influence or sponsorship.

Microsoft hasn't announced when Windows 7 will be released, but many people in the industry, including DiDio, are assuming that the company is aiming to have the next operating system on the market next year. At recent conferences, Microsoft executives stressed that Windows 7 would provide a smoother upgrade from Windows Vista than Windows Vista did from Windows XP.