don’t forget the MS snoopware to “authenticate you”
The multitude of “versions”
Downward compatability is a MAJOR issue for my business as I do not want to be buying new 3rd party EVERYTHING just because the OS upgraded.
Uh oh, you're trying to get me started! We have entered the "Pet Peeve Department" together.
Apple was able to do their System 9 emulation on OS-X well enough to make a decent transition. Microsoft has virutalization tech in-house already that should be able to run the old OS in its entirety if need be, and move their architecture to something much more protected from crashing, and much better suited to a multiuser environment. A better driver architecture, file system, and sleep/hibernate modes that actually work would be a must for the next rev. Killing off the outdated, bloated, POS API would be icing on the cake.
Exactly, but there's more. It's not just buying new 3rd party shelfware that is compatible with your new OS...you've also got to re-write all of your in-house corporate proprietary software that's been working fine for your company and its programmers for years.
And after you spend large amounts of money paying your own programmers and rush-contractors to make the changes, you are only getting the same functionality from your software that you once had back when your company ran XP instead of Vista.
That's a lot of money for a company to spend to wind up doing the same thing. So why change OS's?
And here's the kicker: MicroSoft could write a new OS from scratch and simply ship XP with the new OS. The new OS could have dual boot or virtualization (i.e. actually run XP in a window). So there's NO REASON for spaghetiing XP/Server03 into one giant VISTA OS.
Microsoft could have trivially shipped two OS's together "as one."
Boot to pure XP for speed...or run XP in a Vista virtual window for convenience...and have Vista available for whomever wanted/needed whatever it is that Vista does that XP doesn't (sound of crickets).
Instead, Microsoft so butchered the Server '03/XP code that old hardware drivers won't even run on the Vista OS. Backwards compatibility was thrown out the window...and for that "priviledge" Vista runs at half the speed (at best) as XP on the same hardware.
Faced with an easy solution for the entire marketplace...or a cludge that would hammer performance and botch backwards compatibility, MicroSoft chose the worst of all strategic options.