Windows 7 should win back confidence

thats what always happened

vista is a step in the right direction. Its highly stable, up to date and secure> Problem though, is speed, cost and compartibility

ms really messed up by releasing too many vista versions and by releaing it too late, and then rushing it anyway.

imho it will be a stopgap to a new era

E.g

windows 98 = good.
Windows ME = crap
windows xp good
vista = crap
windows 7 = good ?

I remember Gartner saying the same back about a decade ago, when they predicted that Windows 2000 would fail.

They even state that Windows is too old and that Linux has the future, an even more bloated (who needs 500 text editors, 10 office suits, 20 window managers, etc. etc. installed as standard but no decent way to set up a printer?) and even older operating system (it's based on the 30 year old System V).

I quite disagree with you that Vista is "crap", jbennet. I'm using it on 2 machines, it's rockstable and quite performant.
Some applications may give problems, but that can't be blamed on the operating system as those applications were never designed for the operating system.

The best part about Microsoft's OS is that they keep posting updates. Though I dont know much about vista but XP has proven to be very reliable for me. Lets see what SP3 brings us.

500 text editors? 10 office suites? 20 windows managers? OK, whilst there may well be that that many of these things, it's the same as with Windows free/easyware. There are some main choices ( 2-5 text editors, 2-3 office suites, 2-4 window managers ) and the other options are just niche / rarely looked at, or are based heavily on the main options.

Not much is considered 'standard', you choose what you want from what is available on a very granular level, often as early as install settings, and then you can add what you need/remove what you don't afterwards. It's as bloated or compact as you want it to be. Where do you come up with statements like that anyway? You can install a tiny linux, or a bloated linux. You can bloat Windows in about half an hour, same with Linux. No great difference.

( At least we have a choice of window manager ^_- )

As for setting up a printer.. yeah agreed. but why is that? Driver/printer manufacturers release predominantly for Windows, and I'm quite sure that most linux developers have better priorities than pinning down drivers for every printer on the market. Massive thanks to the ones that do though, since some printers do work fine, despite limited or no help from manufacturers.

thats why i said it was a step in the right direction. highly stable, up to date and secure but had problems with speed, cost and compartibility

uh. No. an OS is designed to run apps. Its its function hence OPERATING system.

Fire Balmer.

Fire Balmer.

Sure, to run applications designed to work on it.
Vista is a different operating system to XP, let alone Windows 1.0.
There were a lot of programs designed for Windows 98 that would no longer work on XP either, yet at the time noone seemed to care about that.
Of course back then most of them were games people were no longer interested in.

It's the nature of the game. Either you loose compatibility with older software at some point or you get a bloated, insecure, impossible to maintain, and quite probably glacially slow, monstrosity.

Microsoft does a lot to ensure things will remain working, but they can't test everything and sometimes have to make tough decisions.
They also provide software makers with information (and prerelease versions) quite a long time before a new OS is released to manufacturing, giving them plenty of time to update and test their products if they so wish. If not all of them do that that's not Microsoft's problem, yet you blame them for the laxness of those other companies.