SEATTLE — Enthusiastic consumer response to the January launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007 helped Microsoft yesterday report a 65 percent quarterly profit surge on sales topping $14 billion.

"The PC market was stronger than we thought, and customer response for Vista and Office 2007 was stronger than we thought," said Charly Tracy, Microsoft's director of investor relations. "It was really just a good, strong quarter across the board."

Xbox video game systems and online services, areas being nurtured for future growth, continued to operate in the red, however.

For its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, the software giant reported net income of $4.9 billion, or 50 cents a share, on sales of $14.4 billion. That was much higher than in the comparable period last year, when Microsoft reported net income of $3 billion, or 29 cents a share, on sales of $10.9 billion.

Those results exceeded Wall Street's expectations and spurred Microsoft to project double-digit revenue growth in its next fiscal year, beginning July 1.

It said 2008 revenue should be $56.5 billion to $57.5 billion. Wall Street had expected Microsoft to generate sales of roughly $56 billion, said Sid Parakh, tech stocks analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen.

By putting out slightly higher guidance, Microsoft boosted optimism that Vista and Office will continue to be hot sellers. "It would imply there might be some upside there," said Parakh. "This quarter points out that Vista and Office 2007 are doing fine."

Beset by a series of delays, Vista's release came at least two years later than originally projected. It arrived amid concerns about its complexity and the propensity of its security features to hinder use of other programs, particularly certain popular video games.

Sales of the Xbox 360 video game console fell 21 percent. The entertainment and devices division, in which Xbox is a big part, lost $315 million on revenue of $929 million. The company cut spending on marketing in the quarter, assuring lower Xbox sales but also stemming losses somewhat, says Matt Rosoff, industry analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

Microsoft also reported operating losses of $200 million on revenue of $623 million in its online service division, where MSN Search competes against Google and Yahoo for the emerging Internet advertising market.

The results were reported after markets closed. Microsoft shares had closed at $29.10, up 11 cents. They topped $30.32 in after-hours trading.