[chaos_5]

OK, since Vista is backwards compatible for XP, and other Windows OS, what makes more business sense? Write XP software so XP and Vista users can use it, or just write Vista software and every one else is screwed?

[Kirkwood]

Actually many XP compatible software apps won’t install on Vista due to security settings. However a lot of older Win95 software runs perfectly well.

There is a huge demand for Vista compatible software. Eventually someone is going to figure out that you can make a ton of money porting applications to Vista.

[Southack]

"OK, since Vista is backwards compatible for XP..."

Who told you that bald-faced one?!

Vista most certainly won't run XP drivers (drivers are software, by the way).

Vista completely broke backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Windows. Try installing an old Quickbooks program onto Vista. Won't happen. Peachtree? Nope.

See XP machines on your Vista network? Not likely...especially not printers.

Microsoft could have had all of the above by simply shipping XP with Vista, and giving the user the option of either dual-booting directly to XP, or running XP in a Vista virtual window.

But instead of doing the above (which would have allowed Vista developers to start coding from scratch instead of being tied to legacy code), Microsoft instead piled massive layers of new code in Server03/XP and called that amalgamation "Vista."

They should have just called it "Train Wreck."