Vista was pretty bad, to be sure. But the absolute *worst* was ME. That piece of garbage was so poorly executed, they should have never done it at all. Then came XP, which gave them a second chance...
the ibnfowarrior
Why do you think MS finally put the original 16/32-bit Microsoft Windows product to bed in 2006?
Windows NT was simply better. I mean, it got to the point where computer stores sold units with Windows 2000 pre-installed, instead of Windows ME.
In 2003, when I got my second computer, there were still a few computers that came with Windows 2000, even though Windows XP had been around for little over a year. And XP was already highly successful in its own right, by then.
That wasn't accidental. Not one bit.
Microsoft knew in the mid-90's (circa Win95) that the MS-DOS based original Windows branch (1/2/3.11/95) had to die, and that they'd have to pry it out of people's hands forcibly.
Towards the end of the 90's, Win98 was extremely popular, but the up-and-coming NT branch of Windows, which was a much better but entirely separate product line technically, was considered only for servers (NT 4.0). They needed to get the populace switched over from MS-DOS Windows to NT Windows.
So they intentionally BROKE the MS-DOS branch of Windows, with Win-ME. It was designed and intended to be SO BAD that people would move to WIN NT 5.0.
Win NT 5.0 was rebranded as "Windows 2000". It picked up some steam, but the real break came with XP.
That whole scenario was planed in advance, and played out exactly as they intended. It was no accident whatsoever.