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I guess developers don't want to write excellent code, but, instead, just think of newer "cool" features to add without thinking if they provide any benefit.

I think it's an architecture problem.

What you want to do there is view a piece of your machine. I would argue that the 'OS' only includes the software you need to run the machine and look at each drive/mount.

Everything else is 'Gui'.

MS, for business reasons, prefers an 'integrated' architecture. Their 'Gui' components like Word, IE, etc, they want to 'integrate' into the OS, because of their OS monopoly. The software world, consumers, good software practices -- everything else prefers 'componentized'.

That, I think, is at the heart of all of MS's problems. They are using every single trick in the book to keep software 'integrated', and fight the 'componentized' approach.

For obvious business purposes.

But the market is against them, so they're actually using their powers to prevent the market from 'innovating'.

So to fight that, their developers are told to integrate things as tightly as possible. This leads to all these issues.

In my humble opinion.

I think developers at Microsoft want to integrate features as it is better to use a feature someone else has already created than to create your own. A nice approach, but a feature may work in one app and misbehave in another.

The problem is that no one stops and thinks about writing solid code,and instead everyone wants to get credit for writing the latest and geatest feature. Let's face it, no one wants to rewrite working code just to make it more secure or faster. That just isn't sexy programming.

I find that the more experienced and talented programers take longer on a feature, but the end result in near perfection. Not to ttot my own horn, but I try to give the users the capabilities they need and nothing more. I will work on a feature 3 times longer than the kid next to me, but the end result is user satisfaction.

It is just difficult to have such a large enterprise of developers at Microsoft and keep them all working in one direction. I don't think MS is evil, it just needs closer internal supervision. I am glad that Gates went back as the Chief Architect. Maybe some MS developers might not think so, but it tells me that the development aspects of MS are getting closer supervision. Gates is a talented developer, and has the track record to show for it. I think that .NET is a good move, and this latest security emphasis is a good move, now lets just see how far the momentum actually carries MS into better software.