For the tech industry, fall means the start of the holiday sales push, with promotions for all sorts of new and improved products. But this year is different. With some major questions looming, consumers may think twice about buying now. The objective is avoiding products that will become obsolete quickly, and that''s the threat facing several new products this year. But with personal computers, this may be the perfect time to buy-depending on what you''re looking for.

For personal-computer makers, the New Year can''t come soon enough. Until then, the normally healthy holiday season might look like a going-out-of-business sale.

The reason for this is mostly due to Microsoft Corp.''s decision earlier this year to delay the broad introduction of its Windows Vista operating system until next January.

The news struck a blow to Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc., Gateway Inc. and the rest of the $200 billion U.S. industry, which for decades had enjoyed a major boost in hardware sales in the wake of a new release of Microsoft software-particularly when it coincided with the holiday selling season.

Now PC makers are scrambling to entice consumers to open their wallets and not wait until the end of January, when Vista is expected to be available to consumers. Some of the planned incentives are typical-larger screens, bigger hard drives and new hardware colors-but many say the most powerful sales tool will also be the most painful: Cutting Prices.

It is estimated that some 70 percent of notebook PCs sold this holiday season will be priced at less than $1,000. That compares with just 38 percent of notebook PCs at less than $1,000 in 2004. At electronics retailer Circuit City Stores Inc., the price of 17-inch-wide notebooks is falling to less than $1,000 from about $1,300 a year ago. In September, Sony Corp. started offering its N-series notebook at less than $1,000 for the first time.

The price slashing underlines how the PC industry continues to be dependent on new Microsoft software. Vista is the biggest overhaul of Microsoft''s operating system in 10 years, when the software maker cemented its PC-software monopoly with the hugely successful Windows 95. Its new operating system includes features such as better ways to search for information on a PC and what Microsoft says is vastly improved security. It will be available to consumers in late January.

PC makers originally expected Vista in time for this year''s holiday selling season, one of the two times a year they can count on consumers to stock up on new PCs and related gear (the other is back-to-school season). And the delay is coming at a particularly bad time for the PC industry. The low prices could pressure the already razor-thin margins in the PC industry-bad news for companies such as Dell and HP, who both want to remain competitive this season, but don''t want to sacrifice long-term growth.

Now the key issue for PC makers is clearing out products that run Microsoft''s current operating system, Windows XP, with the expectation that few consumers will want those machines once Vista ships. Most of those PCs will be able to run Vista later and Microsoft and major PC makers in late October kicked off a campaign-called the Technology Guarantee program-that provides any new Windows XP buyer a free or cheap version of Vista once it is available.

Microsoft acknowledges the PC industry''s concerns over Vista''s timing. But Microsoft says the Vista upgrade program will help drive sales, and buoy prices, for the holidays. Microsoft estimates that 85 percent of the PCs sold this season will have the processing power and other attributes to run Vista if consumers want to install it later.

Some PC makers are trying more colorful pre-Vista marketing campaigns and products to get consumers interested. H-P, for example, is hawking pocket-size storage drives for taking downloaded music, movies and personal video on the go. Sony plans to join its Hollywood counterpart, Sony Pictures, in releasing 1,000 limited-edition James Bond-themed Vaio PCs-with a specially engraved "007" logo and digital camera-tied to the release of "Casino Royale." Gateway is sending six teams to various U.S. cities to gather footage of PC users for a campaign designed to show Gateway''s attention to customers'' needs.

Many of the vendors are also pushing new colors and designs, including a pink notebook for college-age women from Sony''s C-series notebooks to a wave design on H-P''s dv2000 notebook. Gateway is giving its desktops and notebooks a new copper-like color, called tungsten.

The new bells and whistles notwithstanding, PC vendors know that nothing talks like a discount. Gateway says its new NX570 series notebook, which launches on Nov. 9, will sell for $699 after a $200 discount for the holiday season. H-P says its dv 2000 entertainment notebook will go for a low $569.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate.

So what does this mean for all of us? Personally, I expect retail PC sales to slow this year as people wait until Microsoft Windows Vista ships early in 2007, but that doesn''t mean you shouldn''t take advantage of the current low prices.

There is a valid argument to the idea that systems that have Vista preinstalled will be more stable than one that was only upgraded to Vista. So if Vista is very important to you, then you would be better off waiting. On the other hand, if you''re happy with Windows XP now and are willing to stick with it, and if you''re skeptical like me and believe that Microsoft could use some time to work out the kinks with Vista, you should buy now and save lots of money. If you need just a basic machine for Web browsing and running basic applications, Windows XP will do the job just fine.

As a final note, if you buy a new computer now, it will be a good idea to make sure that it is "Vista Compatible" so you will be able to upgrade to the new operating system at a later date. If you want to make sure you can upgrade, be sure your purchase has at least the following specs: