Well, I don’t have a lot of hard theroizing on this one; it’s more just a gut reaction after the Vista launch.  The more I think about it, the more this is similar to the situation Windows users were in back in 2000.  Windows 98 SE was the strong player in those days, very similar to what Windows XP SP2 is today.  Anything you wanted to do worked pretty well on 98 SE, and it was pretty stable.  Then along comes much-maligned Windows ME (Millenium Edition, for you youngsters out there), sporting some small upgrades to the interface and media handling, but pretty much just a patch on Windows 98.  All the time, Windows XP was waiting in the wings - just like “Vienna” is only a couple of years out today.

Personally, I had no trouble with Windows ME, and I expect I’ll have no trouble with Vista.  There’s a lot of contention out there about whether or not it’s worth upgrading, what the exact benefits are, and whether the new OS will “take” or not.  I guess only time will tell.

While we’re talking about time, I wonder what the future of the OS is.  There’s a lot of talk about virtualization these days, and with Macs running Windows, and VMware running anything, it makes you wonder what things will look like 10 or 20 years from now. 

To close, here’s a completely unrelated link sure to BLOW YOUR MIND.