Just got windows 7 home premium...

[bitman]

Windows 7 is much more stable than Vista, but a huge part of this is due to driver improvements by PC hardware manufacturers since the core kernel was already fine from what I found. The other large change though is some tuning for better performance, the stated requirement for 1GB RAM vs 512MB with Vista and a lot of user level interface improvements.

Vista was doomed not by its kernel, but the fact that the public doesn't care if its core is good, as their entire perception is the front-end user experience. People like myself used Vista all along because it was much more secure than XP, but we also fought manufacturer driver issues and stupid decisions like including outdated 'crapware' that caused systems to crash. My own laptop was a perfect example, since it's finally stable after a bottom-up OS rebuild.

The basic problem for a new OS at the public level is it must be tailored to them, unlike those of us with a deep background at an Administrative level. Vista was designed to change the direction of the OS, design in security and seriously begin the switch to a 64-bit OS, which is always a difficult transition.

Just look at your list, since Windows 95 was the 16 to 32-bit transition, ME was the 'hold-over' OS while Windows NT 3.5x was occuring in business, eventually to be completely re-worked into Windows 2000 and then that was re-faced for the public as Windows XP 1 1/2 years later. You also missed other half-step versions like Windows 98SE, XP x64 and those proceeding 3.1 all of which had their own issues.

So each major technical transition has been difficult, especially for the public which really has no deep technical understanding and thus no patience for something that doesn't just 'work'. Since Microsoft is more focused on the pure technology than say Apple, they really have to switch gears and get key people involved to create this 'polished' version that the average Joe can accept. For example, the key person behind the consistency of the Windows 7 GUI was the same one who created the 'Ribbon' in Office 2007.

So no, I don't believe they purposefully do this, it's simply part of the nature of the technical innovation cycle versus user interface improvements. As the number of users with a PC increases their ability and willingness to try to understand the technology decreases, resulting in a GUI gap. I saw this originally at an engineering school where I worked in the 90's, since the newer students were more used to having simple to use technology in their hands almost since birth.

This really isn't surprising, since human factors has been basically understood for years, but always gets supressed by the techno-geeks until something like a Vista kicks them in the b_tt economically, requiring a serious re-thinking of focus.

This is why some tout Apple, since it's stayed on the human factors side of things most of the time, but generally shown the higher cost that typically comes from this choice. PC users as a group don't like to pay for this and so don't always get it, it's really that simple.

Bitman