Microsoft has been explaining to the world why it can't be bothered supporting XP 64-bit in its forthcoming Office 2010.

When the list of supported software came out, sharp eyed hacks noticed that while XP was on the list the 64-bit version was not. Redmond has confirmed it is not interested in supporting Windows XP 64-bit or Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft said that for the best productivity and user experience, the benefits of 64-bit computing with Office 2010 is “best experienced by utilizing the newly introduced 64-bit version of Office 2010 with Windows 7 (64-bit) or Windows Vista (64-bit) version."

While Microsoft is releasing 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Office, it seems that none of them will work on Windows XP 64-bit or Windows Server 2003.

Most people would have expected Redmond to kill off Windows XP 32-bit support for Office 2010, if it had the chance. Unfortunately Windows XP 32-bit is still the world's most popular operating system and axing that would be suicide.