9. XP did what it needed to do, and did it right.

The success of the OS is still being seen in the fact people are choosing not to upgrade to Vista, even though it has a lot of helpful bells and whistles.

I'm about to buy a new laptop, and I asked to be kept on XP. The shop didn't even bat an eyelid, they just checked I wanted SP3.

Microsoft are reeling right now - they HAVE to get Windows 7 right else we could finally see the upturn in OS competition the publice really needs.

8. I agree, I think the significance of XP is being under-appreciated: how fast we forget what an unstable, constantly-crashing dog's dinner the PC OS was before XP.

7. XP might not have *been* a big jump alperian - but it *seemed* like a big jump to the public. It looked so much prettier and the public perception was that they *needed* to update to the OS.

The vast majority don't look at specs or stability, but simple things like prettiness and how many of their friends have upgraded...

6. I do not like Microsoft. I never have. 15 months now since I upgraded to Vista from XP sp2. Not a clean install either, and still the same installation. I hammer my PC. It is full of widgets, games and professional applications but has had ne'er a hitch. MS have done it right for the first time ever and this is (rather typically) the plaudits they receive.

The only big jump in features for a MS OS that I can recall is '95 over 3.11. XP was not the great quantum leap over 2000Opro or even '98 to be honest, so I think Ed's memory has slipped a bit :o) Anyhow: I never had an install that lasted over a year before (Mac or PC).

5. No matter how much Microsoft simplifies Windows, they'll still not be able to compete with a Mac's OS on the simple stakes.

4. Windows 7 *allegedly* will bring a much simpler cleaner interface that will play nice with cloud computing.

Chances are it will still be bloated and unusable - but Microsoft can occasionaly get things spot on, so who knows?

3. Vista didn't bring a lot new to the table maybe because there isn't that much new to bring. It's like cars: at the end of the day, the car does the job and improvements are incremental rather than revolutionary.

Is Windows 7 really going to be about clever new features or a cheaper and easier to deploy architecture? I'd love to think it was the former but have a feeling it's really about the latter.

2. You may have been the sensible one. You have to say Microsoft seem to be throwing it to the lions

1. I Skipped 98 and ME and I will be skipping Vista too.