Microsoft needs to make radical changes to its Windows operating system, as Gartner warns that it is "collapsing".

Two of the research group's analysts said that the software giant needs to react as it faces serious competition, having previously not responded to the market.

Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, the analysts, said that Windows is overburdened by almost two years of legacy code.

"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," they added in their presentation to a conference in Las Vegas.

"Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile," the experts stated.

The pair urged Microsoft to adopt virtualisation with the product, saying they feel it is the future of the industry.

In addition, they said that the software company should make it easier for users to upgrade to newer versions of the systems.

Microsoft is struggling to attract users to its Vista and Internet Explorer 7 offerings, with just 6.3 per cent of businesses using the systems.