>So, you're saying it's Microsoft's job to provide drivers for third party products?

How do you get that out of what I wrote?????
There were lots of "missing" drivers. If MS wasn't going to write them then they should have at least waited until the vendors had supplied them.
Also, vendors took the opportunity to drop drivers for some of their products, which is something MS should have strongly discouraged. My HP PhotoSmart P1100 printer cost me $750. 2.5 years ago and HP decided to leave it out of Vista (after initially telling me one would be available around the third quaarter of 2007).

>
>Are you also saying that you would rather have 100% compatability instead of improved security?

First, the way they've 'accomplished' security leaves lots to be desired. COnstant user pestering and secreting files to alternate locations and ?????? (that means who knows what else) is totally useless.
Secondly yes, a very high degree of compatibility is a necessity. It's a measure of respect for your installed customer base. I had to upgrade a few software products for Vista and that should not have been necessary. The old ones should have continued to work properly, even if they lacked some Vista 'features' deployment.
ANd what's with this WORD 2007 XML support??? A .doc needs to be changed to .zip in order to work with the XML? How brilliant is that?
>
>And as a reminder, there were many of the same issues you are describing when Microsoft made the move from DOS/Win3.11 to Win95 and from Win95 to XP.

Not nearly as bad, and the installed user base was much smaller and much more technical in those days.

And it's not just me who has an acceptance problem (I have Vista on one system and no way to back it out) - just read the press. That MS had to allow OEMs to continue to offer XP is also telling.




>
>>Just look at the general acceptance of VISTA. MS did a terrible job of it's implementation (lack of drivers, little instruction regarding switching from prior OSs, whacky "security" relted changes, etc) and yet it is (allegedly) as compatible as any previous Windows OS.
>>
>>cheers
>>
>>>
>>SNIP