It's not really a suprise they want to forget vista at this point.
They don't really want to "forget" Vista any more than they wanted to "forget" ME. They're selling Vista as hard as they can get.
(Forgive this post... very long. What I get for typing late

)
I've been using Windows since Windows 2. And every time a new Windows comes out, everyone complains about it, then gets used to it, then loves it so much that the next Windows is a blimey mess. And EVERY time Microsoft comes out with a new Windows, it's a blimey mess, then it gets better, then it's pretty darned good.
WINDOWS 3: Much superior to Windows 2. Much better graphics. But it had no networking nothing, a strong shortfall when Novell was
the name in IT.
Became...
WINDOWS 3.11: Networking. Graphics. And 386 mode for superturbo. It's awesome, and many programs got their start right here. Quicken anyone? It was awesome, but as anyone who used it knew, Windows 3.11 added something to the world consiousness: BSOD. We got to know it so well, this joke was awesome 10 years later:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgotUwq4t40[/ame]
You might not notice, but I did. That's a 3.11 blue screen there, not a XP bluescreen that we'd know at the time this tribute was being "presented." Why? Because everyone remembers 3.11 BSODs... Win XP BSODs weren't as well known. It was terrible, but as you got used to it, it wasn't too bad... but it wasn't incredibly stable, you know? In any case, it was good... untill...
WINDOWS NT: Windows NT, NT stands for New Technology. It was completely rebuilt version of windows. 32 bit from the ground, new kernel, they wanted to do something new. But you see, NONE Of the new programs worked. 3.11 programs? Too bad. Rewrite it all. But it was good for businesses, because NT was quite stable. It was great. But it was different. Microsoft realized that NT was just TOO NEW. We needed a middle step, so we got...
WINDOWS 95: I don't know where people get off knocking 95. 95 was my favorite "classic" Windows. It was stable, fast on a 486 with 16 meg of memory, could be easily dropped into Dos, and had networking built in. Not to mention you got a very, very cool bonus: Internet Explorer. At the time, IE was the
shiz. It even allowed you to use 3.11 programs, just not very well. It did 32 bit, the BIG JUMP back then. Finally, it set the template for the graphical user interface that didn't change for over 10 years. It had quite a few issues... until...
Became...
WINDOWS 95 Service Pack 1: The first of the "Service Packs make it all better". SP1 added IE standard. Then a few more "OEM Packs" came out, adding USB, FAT32, all the things we take for grated now that we had...
WINDOWS 98: Piece of MEH. Buggy, slow, integrated with IE to try to push market share, with bad, buggy drivers, nightmares and craziness. It was so horrible. Everyone bought 98 thinking it was going to be as awesome as 95, and it wasn't. It was so horrible, people went out of their way to avoid it, going so far as to pick up 95, and demand downgrades. Sound familiar?
Apple even made some ads making fun of Windows. Fancy that.
And there's the fameous [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgriTO8UHvs"]Bill Gates Windows 98 Crash[/ame]
WINDOWS 98 SE: Ahh, breath of fresh air. Windows 98
Second Edition was what Windows 98 was supposed to be. It was stable (ish... instabilities usually caused by cheap hardware), did all the things 98 tried to do, was actually pretty fast, and played all the games. Office got the look it would keep until Office 2008 here.
On the other side of the divide...
WINDOW NT 4: Revolutionized NT. Locked it down. Made it purr. Built on the core of Windows NT 3, but on the graphical stylings and technologies from 95, Windows NT was the workstation operating system of choice. It had great networking capabilities and lots of power. This is also where Microsoft's Server line of OS's started. It took over in medium businesses from 95, which was never designed to be a business OS. NT4 is the only Windows to break the mold... it never really had a cranky childhood phase. It did end up having 6 service packs, but only really suffered from "do I want to spend the money to upgrade?" at the beginning. Meanwhile, in Classic Windows Land...
WINDOWS ME: According to Revelations, this is the third sign of the apocalypse. Windows ME sucked. It's like they looked at all the things they fixed between 98 and 98SE, and rolled everything back just a little farther. ME is the Virtual Boy of the Windows World: big plans were being made, but in the background, something much more exciting was being developed. We knew this blessing in the future to be...
Whistler. Constant breathless gasps were passed down from on high about how awesome Whistler was going to be. ME never really had a point but to fill in the consumer gap, and in any case LITERALLY had not features above and beyond 98SE. So 98SE stayed mainstream.
In Workstation Land...
WINDOWS 2000: There are people who still swear by 2000, who use it to this day! It was small, fast, stable, and tight. It did everything you wanted, and little you didn't. I'm tempted to just put Epic Win here and move on... Windows 2000 was designed to replace 98 and NT, but those plans were dropped (and instead we got SE above). This windows did what it was supposed to do and nothing more.
ME was such a whack job, that everyone knew it was slapped togeather to keep the slobbering hordes at bay. What was the new creature?
WINDOWS XP: A merging of the user friendly features of Windows 98SE, with the stability and power of NT. Microsoft had noticed something... everyone liked the way 98 looked, but the way NT worked. They had planned to merge the lines with 2000, but took an extra year to produce XP. 2000 was for boring workstations in cubes, Windows XP was designed to show off the Windows eXPerience.
But it's interesting how many people forget how much XP sucked when it first came out.
For Business people, it was grand. It was an upgrade from 2000. For home computers, though... whole new drivers had to be written, whole new programs had to be written. XP was more secure, and most 98 programs had fits when you tried to run them. Apple had a field day, telling everyone they could drag into tractor range that OS9 could run programs from OS1 without any issues whatsoever. Angst filled the community... you know XP
required 128 megabytes of memory? Scandalous! Like XP was built for a machine of the future!
It wasn't until... guess? Windows XP Service Pack 1, where XP was really a deal. The security holes had been patched, the buggy drivers had been rebuilt, the bad services were redesigned, and everyone was happy...
...and we were hearing about the greener grass over the hedgerow...
Longhorn.
Windows comes in cycles. They release. It sucks. They patch. It rocks. While patching the new Windows, they're planning the next one. And remember how many times Vista's deadlines slipped... I won't be surprised if in 2 years...
...everyone swears by Vista Service Pack 2, and are griping about Windows 7 requiring so much memory and video card power and hard drive space. Looking at the prices with fear and loathing. Cursing Microsoft for making us upgrade. They're going to have tech demos with bluescreens. Pundits are going to tell everyone to stay with Vista for stability and security. First adopters are going to come back with horror stories about glitches in Windows 7, sending FUD flying around. Apple is going to come out about how superior MacOSX PuttyTat has features from the planet Krypton. Then Win7Sp1 will come out and everything will be OK again.
Conclusion:
Here's the biggest problem with Vista... for the first time, people actually listened to computer nerds. Just so happened that they (1) listened to us at the wrong time, and (2) didn't understand how we talk, and (3) refuse to forget what we say.
The computer world changes fast. I could hate Quicken last week, and love it this week. Nerds already "know" that any data they get about programs must be taken with a grain of salt, and must fade away with time. When released, Vista sucked like interstellar vacuum. And we griped, and griped. Everyone heard us. But then Vista got better and we started enjoying it. But everyone had already heard us gripe and had blackened the brand name. That's why the Mojave Experiement works so well.
People don't know what they're talking about, but they do know that Johnny Nerd said Vista sucked... 6 months ago. But people have heard Aunt Myrtle, who's heard from Jimmy, who's heard from Samantha, who's husband talked to a friend who's third cousin is a computer nerd who said Vista sucked... or maybe it was "I wouldn't buy Vista until Service Pack 1." Same diff, right?
Also, note that Apple has been bashing PC for YEARS. Check these commercials out:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OZg3ljsbc0[/ame]
PC Bashing begins at 2:30ish. And just check out the Hard Drive one (5:30). "EDLIN" indeed. And how about that page of UNIX instructions thrown in?
Underdogs have always picked on the winner attempting to get people to think the current winner sucks, and the new cool kid on the block is better. I see Apple ads and think of...
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7nsBoqJ6s8]Genesis does what Nintendon't[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlulSyBI2aY]"Blast Processing"[/ame]
Best I've been able to tell, "Blast Processing" means "the processor can do work on the next frame while the current frame is drawing on another chip." While technically, SNES didn't have "Blast Processing," it was irrelevant. SNES didn't NEED "Blast Processing". SNES did video it's own way. But that didn't stop Sega from pulling an Apple and complaining that SNES does things... differently.
Always made me laugh. Mac Nuts make fun of PC's because PC's do things differently... and then gloat when PC's do things the same. Which is it?