I'm a programmer and am also in charge of producing our company's software installations. .NET does not retain COM's problems and in fact makes it significantly easier to install and maintain software. Trust me on this one.
Now repeat after me: "It's okay to enjoy more than one operating system -- the OS one prefers at any given time is not a matter of life or death." I've got both my Linux box and my Windows 2000 box running as I speak and only need to turn a knob to switch between the two. There are good things about both systems and there are weak things about both systems. That's okay.
No. I won't trust you. And I won't trust Microsoft either.
There are various and sundry reasons for that, but in this particular case it's because that Microsoft themselves called .NET COM3 internally up until about 1998. Microsoft has to retain backward combatibility because their underlying OS code is such a mess. .NET simply removed the COM/DCOM bugs into the abstraction layer where you don't see it. But they're still there.
Now repeat after me: "It's okay to enjoy more than one operating system -- the OS one prefers at any given time is not a matter of life or death." I've got both my Linux box and my Windows 2000 box running as I speak and only need to turn a knob to switch between the two. There are good things about both systems and there are weak things about both systems. That's okay.
Now repeat after me: "When a company exhibits behavior that I wouldn't accept from my banker, stock broker or lawyer, I'm going to stop giving them my money. When a company lies, cheats and steals, I'm not going to give them a pass because they are popular. When a company continually uses bait-and-switch tactics (No really! This version is going to be secure. We promise this time!) I'm going to switch to something else. I will do this because I believe that ethics aren't just something you do while in church or while people are watching."
Look. When Microsoft makes a product that is open, fully documented and stable, I'll consider overlooking their past activities. When Microsoft straightens up and starts behaving like an honest company, I'll go back to supporting them. Until then, I'm not interested in their products and I'll continue to point out their lies and deceptions.
If you want to let Microsoft lock up your code, be my guest. But let's not have any whining when .NET goes the way of VisualInterDev. (Remember that?)