The wide audience needs straight ways to do things because most people like to execute, not to decide.

MS defenders vary. Some have invested time learning MS technologies. Others worship wealth and success. Others have simply had bad luck with other OSes and have lost interest in trying again.

* Driver support

* Running windows applications (and here I'm including their equivalent, or under Wine/Crossover)

* Ease of use/installation

I'd be interested to hear what distro they tried and when they tried it. My last few installs of Debian/Ubuntu, even on non-x86 hardware has been a breeze and certainly much quicker than installing a fresh copy of XP.

That doesn't make any sense. Obviously there was a time when nobody used Windows, so what made them buy it before it was "what everyone uses"?

"When you think about it, its amazing that Microsoft continues to sell Windows at all....why should you ever pay for another one?"

You're amazed at this? Really? After thinking about it? Do you ask yourself things like "why do we have Automobiles when a Horse and Buggy is good enough"? Obviously, improvements are made and that's why people buy new versions of things.

"I've been fascinated with Microsoft defenders...for years, since they seem to gain nothing by promoting the status quo..."

And I'm fascinated by people like yourself who are so completely out of touch with reality that you actually believe your own bullshit. The status quo is kept alive because Microsoft has the best tools for business and enterprise. Other outfits have a few pieces of the puzzle, but Microsoft's got them ALL (good desktop, good server, good developer tools and API's).

It just came with their IBM compatible PC. Oh yeah, and it ran their software.

"what made them buy it before it was 'what everyone uses'?"

The quick answer is that the IBM PC became popular and brought MS-DOS with it. Its popularity of the IBM PC in general was heavily based on IBM's brand and software compatibility of business applications. When other companies wanted to get into the PC market, they found it hard to sell hardware that didn't have well known software written for it (which of course is because the hardware wasn't popular, leading to a natural monopoly for the IBM PC).

Because of the clone market and the deal Microsoft had signed with IBM, the growth of the clone market meant the growth of MS-DOS, and eventually the transfer of monopoly power from IBM to Microsoft. From MS-DOS 1.0, Microsoft has always been a "Me-too" player, adding only the features necessary to prevent people from switching platforms. This trends towards a culture of letting others do the innovating.

"Do you ask yourself things like 'why do we have Automobiles when a Horse and Buggy is good enough'?"

Well, thats a good question, but I'll answer it with another one - how much does the Horse and Buggy cost? Because, if I am 10 times more productive with the car, and the car cost me less than that, yes, I should have a car. So yes, Windows XP is much better than MS-DOS 1.0. I would be more productive with XP, and it costs less than the productivity gain. When Vista came out, and it costs more than XP, and there is no "upgrade" discount, the question was very different. Businesses did not upgrade (if they weren't forced) to Vista because they didn't get their money back. Now Windows 7 is due, and we'll ask ourselves once again whether its worth the additional money.

"And I'm fascinated by people like yourself who are so completely out of touch with reality that you actually believe your own bullshit."

I think that everyone should... your much better off believing your own bullshit than someone else's. Still, I think that you might not understand the world as well as you think you do.

"The status quo is kept alive because Microsoft has the best tools for business and enterprise."

Ah, and now you hit the nail perfectly. Microsoft is alive because they have the best system for people in power to control those that they employ. Its smart catering to the basics of human nature, and control is one of them. Wouldn't we all be happier if we could control the lives of others?

The deep question is who is this better for, and who makes the decisions. I believe that Personal Computing should be, err... personal. The success of software should be derived from how much more personally efficient it makes each of us. This means that I value features like ease of use (more learning means less efficiency for non-repetitive tasks), low cost (less effort I have to expend to get the gain), organization and consistency (the opposite of which is needless stress to me), and stability (downtime is not productive, nor are interruptions).

My original comment on this submission comes from my inherit distaste for mouthpieces who defend companies against their own consumers. If Jason says that he dislikes the organization of Windows 7, then to an extent, the organization of Windows 7 is wrong. If the OS has to be customized to be useful, then it is wrong (every new Windows box I have to use gets the classic theme, hidden files visible, and a list of things that grows the more I have to use it.) When Microsoft runs an ad campaign instead of fixing Vista bugs, they have failed. Please, everyone, stop defending their failures. Defend what is worth defending and you'll feel better about yourself.

In my opinion, the goal of this article is for Ed to show that he is a better consumer than Jason, and in the end tells me that Microsoft has failed again. Amusingly, the first comment in the article's page is "I am 100pct with Jason.". The second is "Loving Windows XP". What if Windows 7 is a step backwards from XP? Have we forgotten Windows ME? How does your horse and buggy metaphor apply then?

[ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm ] [ http://www.pbs.org/nerds/ ]

Do you remember the lines of customers waiting to buy Windows 95 the week that it was released? Do you really think that was because "everybody was already using Windows"? No. It was because of all the improvements. Nobody even used Windows 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0. It wasn't until Windows 3.11 that anyone seriously used Windows. And it wasn't because IBM handed it to them on a silver platter.

"Microsoft has always been a "Me-too" player..."

FYI, That's complete and utter bullshit. If they were only a "me-too" player they wouldn't have a huge R&D department. They wouldn't have been the ones to make the mouse wheel popular. They wouldn't have come out with the XBox. They wouldn't have invented LINQ. Do you have any idea what you're talking about or are you just a hater with a tin-foil cap on?

"Microsoft is alive because they have the best system for people in power to control those that they employ."

Wrong. Microsoft offers the best platform for developers and users to control _the computer_. Where did you get all of this stuff about people controlling other people? You are starting to sound like a crack pot conspiracy theorist.

The reason that I use Windows, quite simply, is that it generally lets me do what I want, the way that I want to do it. And that's the same answer you'll likely get from anyone who enjoys using Windows. I can't say the same for Linux or for Apple although I have used both extensively. All that Apple offers is ultimate lock-in and Linux is way too fragmented and unorganized to be useful on anything but a server which is where I put it to use for my company.

I also love Vista _because_ of all the improvements. It runs on 3 of the HTPC's in my house because Vista Media Center pretty much kicks the ass of XP Media Center, Apple's Front Row, Linux MythTV or XBMC. So, there are definite improvements over past versions. Of course trolls like yourself won't have anything to say about that, will you?

"When Microsoft runs an ad campaign instead of fixing Vista bugs"

Gee, steal lines from Apple much? Exactly what bugs are you talking about? Can you even think of one? Like I said...I use Vista everyday and I don't have a problem with it, so no I don't think of it as a failure and I feel just fine defending it.

The horse and buggy metaphor stands up just fine because there were many failed attempts at making an automobile before someone actually did it. There's nothing wrong with failure. I love failure. I love failing. If nobody ever failed, we wouldn't know anything.

If you don't accept the arguments of natural monopoly based on software compatibility, and use in the workplace due to compatibility and control, thats your prerogative, but objectivity is a goal here.

"'Microsoft has always been a "Me-too" player...' FYI, That's complete and utter bullshit."

Mouse wheel : did Microsoft invent that? I'm curious to know more about the history of it. XBox : in a classic "me-too" move, they use tons of money to break in to a market with a weak product and huge marketing. Somehow, they managed to make a great team out of that and turn around a solid second generation product, so I agree that the XBox team is now innovative. LINQ : have you heard of Rails? Languages that aren't statically typed (I hear lisp is popular around here)? LINQ is nifty if you are a .Net developer, thats where it ends.

It's interesting that you bring up Windows 95 as an argument for Microsoft's innovation, since it was basically a Windows 3.1 compatible copy of Apple's System 7. Yes, lots of people lined up to get Windows 95. Yes, it was a huge improvement over Windows 3.1, and worth the money. No, it was not successful because it was better than the competition. Even worse than their blatant feature copying was the twist they put on things to make them seam original. The "Recycling Bin"? Why is the system menu called "Start"? Why are there menu bars on each window, moving all over the place and being generally harder to click on? [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts_law ]

"Where did you get all of this stuff about people controlling other people? You are starting to sound like a crack pot conspiracy theorist."

Thank you? What exactly is a "conspiracy theorist"? I suspect that you're going to tell me that its someone who dislikes the government, but what you mean is someone who has wild ideas that don't deserve attention. If you can't see the desire for control as an inherent human trait, you should really try thinking a bit more, maybe reading a book (history if possible). Anyway, control is a huge selling point of Windows. My mom has a work issued laptop that's been configured to disallow her from changing the wireless network settings to join a wireless network. That's pretty controlling in my opinion.

"Vista Media Center pretty much kicks the ass of XP Media Center"

Thats a great point, and one that Apple sometimes uses as well. It turns out that 10.5 really didn't have a lot of good features that would make everyone want to upgrade, so they added a bunch of developer frameworks that they wouldn't package for 10.4. Why should I buy a new operating system for the Media Center? In Microsoft's "Mojave" commercials they have people talk about how they like the photo stiching software. These are not OS level features, and the only reason that they don't run on XP is because Microsoft keeps them as cheese to encourage people to upgrade the entire OS. Why not sell Vista Media Center as an XP application? The bundling mindset is so engrained in our thinking that its largely invisible.

"Gee, steal lines from Apple much? Exactly what bugs are you talking about? Can you even think of one?"

Personally, I would like to see them finally solve DLL conflicts. Shared library support is a non-issue on linux and Mac, but the best solution on Windows is to pay for a capable enough version of Visual Studio to statically link OS libraries (thus defeating the point of shared libraries). Last time that I used vista there were still lots of video driver issues, and I had problems with unpredictable behavior differences between XP and Vista.

Here's the real kicker tho: they ran an entire ad campaign where they fooled people into thinking that their product was something else, and then surprising them. This is analogous to letting someone drive a mystery car around an autocross track and then telling them that its a really a Pinto (see? It was plenty powerful in this parking lot! Now don't get in any accidents!). You can be certain that they cherry picked the hardware, specifically scripted the experience to avoid any known issues, and only showcased the people who were happy.

"There's nothing wrong with failure."

This we can agree on. Without allowing for failure, we cannot succeed.

There is no question what I would prefer to manage. You underestimate the power of Active Directory and Group policies.

BTW, having worked IT I fully agree with you. Mac OS X has a good notion for how one might manage groups of computers (NetInfo), but it isn't as pervasive at the application level and so it isn't as powerful.