was_fred

Windows Collapsing Under Its Own Weight - Gartner

Microsoft could phase out support for legacy applications the same way Apple did. System 10.4 no longer supports "Classic" applications. While the user base needed to update their software, the phase-out was slow enough to allow them to do so without too much pain. MS could do the same - starting with Vista service packs - y concentrating on the future and allowing legacy apps to run in a compatibility box. Virtualization is real enough right now. Using a virtual machine to manage the past and streamlining the OS to do away with legacy baggage would provide a good path to the future.

As long as they don't make driver registration onerous, they could succeed. Also, for performance reasons, they would have to provide the ability for drivers to hook to a kernel which may actually have to use some - dare I say - hand-tuned assembly code. Just because you have the space and the processors are getting faster doesn't mean that you should expand the bloat of the OS an applications to stress test the newest, fastest machines. Remember when Word fit on a single 1.4M floppy? Modular can be a good thing, if it's done right.