Microsoft has once again put Windows XP on life support, extending the OS’s death date to May 30, 2009. This reprieve comes two months after rumors swirled about another potential bail out.

In the new agreement — first discovered by ChannelWeb — distributors can purchase XP licenses until January 31, 2009, the original date in which XP was supposed to turn to dust, but take delivery against those orders through May 30.

Windows XP was supposed to stop shipping on January 30, 2008, but that date has been extended several times. It will live on Netbooks until 2010. XP is also still a booming business: Dell started charging $150 per Vista downgrade — three times as much as the original fee.

Meanwhile, Windows 7’s rumored release date hovers around October 2009. With each extension of Windows XP’s death, Microsoft inches closer to Windows 7’s release, thereby sublimating Vista and its skimpy chances at some kind of late-blooming success. Given the market’s resistance to Vista — and Microsoft’s own perceived uncertainty — we should expect Windows 7 to arrive sooner rather than later so the monstrous software company can save face.

Just days after patching a critical flaw in its Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft is now warning users of a serious bug in its SQL Server database software.

Microsoft issued a security advisory late Monday, saying that the bug could be exploited to run unauthorized software on systems running versions of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

Attack code that exploits the bug has been published, but Microsoft said that it has not yet seen this code used in online attacks. Database servers could be attacked using this flaw if the criminals somehow found a way to log onto the system, and Web applications that suffered from relatively common SQL injection bugs could be used as stepping stones to attack the back-end database, Microsoft said.

Desktop users running the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine or SQL Server 2005 Express could be at risk in some circumstances, Microsoft said.