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One also has to remember that Windows Vista has problems at the moment of RC but I think a lot of people assumed, or more correctly hoped, that maybe these issues would be fixed. When compared to Windows Vista at this point, Windows 7 is so far ahead its almost like day and night.

Windows 7 so far is superior to Windows Vista in every way and matches Windows XP when it comes to performance (which was the big gotcha) and brings a whole heap of updates. Its a 'good thing'(tm) when an operating system brings a heap of improvements and doesn't end up dragging down the performance of the computer :-)



I guess I was lucky given that I avoided DOS, Bob and WinME. When DOS 6.1 was released I was using my Amiga 500 (could never work out why people were using PC's at the time given Amiga was far superior). Bob was a product that should have remained in the workshops - I can understand the ideas behind it and I certainly am not going to abuse them for at least trying to give something new ago; infact I think bob actually resulted in Microsoft taking less risks and resulted in the mediocre bit by bit progression forward which a mountain of legacy garbage left behind within Windows.



I have a feeling that Windows 7 is what Windows Vista should have been had there not been the massive code reset and getting Windows XP SP2 out the door; had they used the Windows 2003 code from the beginning rather than Windows XP, then I think you would have found alot of the problems wouldn't have arisen given that they would have had time to include alot of the features in Windows 7 in Windows Vista.

I say this because I get the impression that alot of the features within Windows 7 were things that could have gone into Windows Vista but due to time constraints Microsoft decided to cut their losses and 'ship the damn thing'. If that is the case then I think that if Microsoft wishes to earn some 'brownie points' then they should provide a heavy discount to Windows Vista users who upgrade.

Regarding compatibility/incompatibility of Windows Vista (and Windows 7) with previous versions- I think a lot of it is over blown and quite frankly I think Microsoft should ignore those who complain about incompatibility; I'd sooner see Microsoft clean up their code, throw out huge amounts of gunk from Windows, improve performance, improve stability and security. If all that requires that I can't run a 20 year old poorly written application then quite frankly its a small price to pay.

Edited 2009-05-06 01:19 UTC

So basically, Microsoft should ignore their biggest market segment, that being the enterprise? They haven't gotten rid of all that backward-compatible cruft because, if they did so, they'd be facing far more complaints from large businesses whose software no longer worked. I'm not making excuses for them... but to Microsoft, keeping that stuff in there is literally a matter of satisfaction over hatred from their biggest market segment. Home users, on a scale of 1 to 10 with regards to their importance to Microsoft in the big scheme of things, rank down close to a -5--i.e., completely unimportant.
Microsoft will do what is best for Microsoft, and it's in their best interest to break as little backwards compatibility as possible over the longest stretch of time. As long as big businesses use their software, and OEMs continue to ship it on basically everything, they're set. Lose the big businesses, and they've lost most of their customer base.

Coming from me, it may be a sign of impending apocalypse but I felt the "new OS" excitement when installing and booting Win7 for the first time yesterday. I mean that "oh I have to explore this new toy" feeling that I haven't gotten from a Microsoft product since the 3.11 too win98 jump or Win2k too WinXP jump. It feels very much like the Vista that should have been.

I'll have a better opinion once the shinny new OS honeymoon ends and I can have a good look beyond the makeup.