So XP won't run Win9x programs? That what you mean?
The free market point was that Microsoft seems to have forgotten how they got here, by providing backward compatibility, as was discussed in that thread you apparently missed. If it's true that .NET is inferior, and incapable of doing previous tasks as well, or as reliably, as the old MS tools, the visual programming languages, then you have to argue in favor of some protected market, to benefit Microsoft, or else throw Microsoft to the free market competition which might provide better tools and solutions, in the long run. We'll see.
Another aspect of Microsoft's success was monopolistic threat to clone vendors. That was the complaint behind the Justice Dept. suit which arguably sparked the dot.com bust under Clinton. That's not a free market practice. But what's forgotten is that Microsoft OS provides drivers and compatibility with various hardware, and certain extras. And this seems a problem for UNIX clones, right now. And the free market prefers Microsoft, and has for this reason since at least Win 3.1 (where the extras were TrueType fonts, which themselves are now 'deprecated' in favor of OpenType (a superior technology) running only XP/SP2)).
Microsoft can change whatever they want, however they will. But someone else suggested the great hypocrisy. They talk of a free market, but seem to have rigged it to favor a certain protected class based on their own lack of documentation for their own products. If so, if that's the case, what's free, what's competitive, about such a market?
They can't have it both ways. And the real free market will determine that, ultimately. You already see people wanting to dispense with IE for Firefox. You already see developers using some UNIX variant in preference to developing in the NT line of Microsoft OS. Again, we'll see.
Run the program? XP Backup won't even recognize the Win9X /ME files. There are workarounds but it is aggravating.