I can't find a single product on this list that I could say, "yep, that was worth it".

DCOM - a pile of complexity even most Microsoft employees couldn't understand. Different threading models, security problems, you name it. In my early days as Microsoft employee one unfortunate guy decided to implement an app to manage installing latest build of a (different) product and running tests on a couple hundred machines; he spent month fighting DCOM problems.

ActiveX - huge security nightmare in the browsers.

IE3 - don't know, don't remember much.

WMC - windows-based media centers are a failure. Large, noisy, boxes, poor power management, lack of support for MKV in the latest version. Had they done it right there would never be a Roku, and Apple TV would be too late to market. It's failure.

Home server - they should have solved two simple problems: 1) every windows user should have a backup solution according to his budget (starting from $50 and up) 2) every windows user should have a one-click file-sharing solution according to his budget (starting at zero dollars). They failed at both. I guesstimate 90% of windows users still do not have a backup solution. This reflects poorly on the entire platform reputation. So they came up with a $400 noisy, blinking box that needs its own space. These "features" are most often incompatible with female spousal units. Geeks love those gadgets, which is the market they conquered, leaving normal people behind.

WP7 - they jury is still out on that one.

Overall this looks like a bunch of products only a geek could love. Yes, they are cool, but they failed to live up to the Microsoft's then-ambitions - to change normal people's lives for the better.

Just because you don't like/use the products is no reason to assault somebody else's work like that.

Some of these products have resulted in millions of dollars and (apparently) some happy customers.

It's not just me not liking a product. I claim these products (the ones I listed) have failed to achieve any significant goals, anything worthy of the opportunity.

For example, yes, WHS sold quite a few devices, and it would be a huge success for a startup, but when you have the entire power of Microsoft behind your back, your goals need to be ambitious. I have outlined what I think WHS goals should have been - a backup solution for 80 percents of all platform users. In version "next" they could add file sharing for 80% of the users.

Anything less than that is a waste of opportunity, and a huge disservice to Microsoft users, employees, and shareholders.

I'm a bit nostalgic but I think IE3 was huge. I was still in high school but I remember staying up all night so that I could download it the moment it was available. Up until IE3 was released, Netscape Navigator was virtually unchallenged. It was only a few months, but Netscape Navigator's big new feature was Javascript. IE3 came out with JScript support only a few months later and nullified much of Netscape Navigator's advantage there. It matched Navigator's support for plugins and HTML frames, which was important because a lot of sites were taking advantage of HTML frames at the time. If I remember correctly, it even loaded pages a lot faster than Netscape Navigator. Netmeeting and Windows Media Player also eventually came bundled with IE3 which provided a tiny glimpse of what a future web could offer, even if our paltry 14.4k and 28.8k modems couldn't deliver at the time.

Also, ActiveX gets a bad wrap but mostly because of the lack of forethought that went into security and the fact that ActiveX was Windows-only. The underlying goal being able to add functionality to the browser using a "real" programming language was just ahead of its time. For what it's worth, ActiveX was a response to Java applets which attempted a similar goal but ultimately failed because of a lack of performance (i.e., people hate Java applets because they're slow). I don't remember ActiveX suffering from the same performance issues.

Yeah man I really liked IE 3 at the time.

It's a shame that both Windows MCE and Windows Home Server never lived up to their potential. Possibly we can add WM7 to that list in a few years too. I can understand why he's leaving. It must be horrible to develop these really good products and see your company drop the ball on them.

MCE's challenge (at the time) was the cable networks death grip on the signal. It took years for CableCARD to surface, and even then it was limited in its deployment geographically and provider wise. If that had been solved much quicker I bet we would have seen a larger MCE ecosystem form. Nowadays the world is moving on to online streaming which presents other challenges. Looking at Boxee's solution shows how hard it is to get it to work as smooth as possible. Apple is besting it by brokering deals with content providers, perhaps something Microsoft should have pursued earlier. It's tough when you've heard the internal vision of what it could have been and seen what is has become. There was so much not brought to the public that would have made MCE a staple in the home theatre.

MCE shares its victimhood at the hands of content companies with the other media center solutions, like MythTV, XBMC, etc. The lack of a simple way to get cable TV into the PC (coupled with lawsuits targeting automated commercial skipping, etc.) relegated HTPC use to the brave few who were willing to set up IR blasters on their cable boxes or just download content instead of recording it.

It is the geek's torment to remember always what could have been, and suffer under what really is, thanks to the mighty powers that be (in this context the content companies, patent holders, etc.).

WHS was a great idea tied to an awful implementation. I installed a copy through MAPS at work, and I think it lasted all of 15 minutes before I dismissed it entirely; it looked like very little more than Windows Server 2003 with some weakly integrated automation sitting on top.

Genuine question: are any of these worth to be proud of? Besides the shipping of the actual product.

Honestly, all of them.

Alas, I had to deal with IE3. Not sure what to be proud about that thing (except for being a bit better than IE2).

From Wikipedia on what was in IE3:

"Version 3 included Internet Mail and News 1.0 and the Windows Address Book. It also brought the browser much closer to the bar that had been set by Netscape, including the support of Netscape's plugins technology (NPAPI), ActiveX, frames, and a reverse-engineered version of JavaScript named JScript. Later, Microsoft NetMeeting and Windows Media Player were integrated into the product and thus helper applications became not as necessary as they once were. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were also introduced with version 3 of Internet Explorer."

IE was clearly playing catch up at that point, but one thing I do remember is that IE was acceleratig really quickly. And like you, I do recall IE3 being behind Netscape, but I also recall it being the first time I thought, "MS is on a trajectory to surpass Netscape shortly".

Seriously ? One dude built ActiveX and DCOM ?! Wow...

No, he was part of a team.

I think mariusmg is making a point. The text above is written as if the person solely did the work. In my opinion it would have been better to write it as "part of numerous teams, including ones that developed X, Y and Z."