Keep making excuses. Microsoft's last true retail success in operating systems was Windows 95. Windows 98 was a genuine improvement, but it was not the retail success that Win 95 was. We all know that the follow-up Windows Me was an unmitigated disaster. In this sense, the disaster that is Vista is not new.
The larger issue is that for more than a decade now, Microsoft has over-promised and under-produced in the OS market. Go back to Windows 95. Microsoft called it Windows without DOS. The facts were the exact opposite. Windows 95 was based on MS-DOS and required it to operate. As I said above, Windows 98 was a genuine improvement in Microsoft's DOS-based OS. With Windows Me, Microsoft discovered that you can't push a rope.
Windows 2000 promised to replace the DOS-based and NT-based branches of Windows with a single unified branch. Didn't happen. Windows XP was what Windows 2000 was supposed to be. However, it was susceptible to the most dangerous computer malware in history. Without question, Win XP has improved since its introduction. However, it is amusing that so many Windows users now hang onto XP when presented with the prospect of Vista.
Now we hear that Windows 7 will be The Promised Land and Windows users can put the Vista nightmare behind them. We have heard it all before. It wasn't true then. It isn't true now.
