don't bet on it being a free upgrade. i'm convinced this is going to be what windows 98 was to windows 95. same OS with a few more "features" and
some stability improvements. does it not seem odd that a pretty new OS such as vista is already having a successor being shown off? i think it went
a little something like this:
MS decides (and maybe rightfully so) that they need to start deprecating legacy apps/hardware in the name of innovation.
People still rely on legacy apps/hardware for business and gaming. This starts the "Vista Sucks" movement.
MS tries to figure out how to convince people to upgrade:
1) try to convince people that XP won't be supported anymore and that they really should move to Vista.
2) Make some new games exclusive to Vista
3) DirectX10
MS realizes that people are onto them:
1) XP support has been extended due to strong demand
2) "Vista-only" games would run perfectly well on XP if you just took out the OS version check. (has been done on a couple of games.) Artificial
obsolescence tends to piss people off.
3) DirectX10 was never finished. It basically has a basic framework in place - it's slow and that's why you have games that have options to enable
"DirectX10 Features". The game still uses the DX9 API for a lot of it. DX10.1 will supposedly be what DX10 was meant to be. (maybe there are
exceptions with games running fully in DX10, but i'm not specifically aware of any. most i have seen just have DX10 as a bonus feature.)
MS tries to figure out how to get people to move to Vista:
1) Hint that they know they screwed up with Vista, whether they did or didn't
2) Announce plans for a more refined version of Windows that is based on Vista
3) Add some useful features to an OS that has actually become non-turdy due to patches and a service pack and claim that "it's all fixed". In
reality people have just had time to get used to Vista and will be much more open to a second coming.
