I
insider
Guest
It had a very long run relative to the older O/Ses because major patch updates were not practical to distribute over analog modems, it was far easier to release a new O/S altogether than patch Windows 95>98>98SE>ME, 2000>XP.
XP SP2 was a major upgrade, M$ could have chosen to release a new O/S altogether like in the past, but times have changed.
Since 2001 there has been an explosion in the take up of high speed internet connections around the world making several hundred MB updates via the internet practical, MS going back to 3 year cycles is a big mistake, both consumers and developers won't play ball, 6 year product cycles is far more practical.
Windows 7 is brought forward early because Vista sucked, with Server 2008 the vista core performance was improved vastly but too late...
Drivers from ATI and nVidia took years to mature for the XP platform, game developers (unlike primitive games in the past) can take 2-3 years to develop and optimise for the targeted O/S platform, old school 3 year O/S product cycles will create problems...
XP SP2 was a major upgrade, M$ could have chosen to release a new O/S altogether like in the past, but times have changed.
Since 2001 there has been an explosion in the take up of high speed internet connections around the world making several hundred MB updates via the internet practical, MS going back to 3 year cycles is a big mistake, both consumers and developers won't play ball, 6 year product cycles is far more practical.
Windows 7 is brought forward early because Vista sucked, with Server 2008 the vista core performance was improved vastly but too late...
Drivers from ATI and nVidia took years to mature for the XP platform, game developers (unlike primitive games in the past) can take 2-3 years to develop and optimise for the targeted O/S platform, old school 3 year O/S product cycles will create problems...
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