New
#31
First of all, people forget that Microsoft has *ALWAYS* fiddled with the OS and Apps to try to find better ways to do things, and they don't always succeed... For example, back in the Windows 98 and Windows 2000 days, Microsoft created these horrible "self-hiding" menus (it hid menu items you didn't use very often). in XP they got rid of them and there was much rejoicing.
Then Microsoft created the Ribbon, which has been much more divisive. You either love it or hate it. Many people love it, and unfortunately for those that hate it, it's been more successful than not.
Microsoft is now moving away from desktop apps (Win32 applications) to WinRT apps. Lots of people wonder why they didn't just wait to make this change when everything was done. And the answer is that they tried this....
Did you ever wonder why it took 6 years for them to release a new OS after XP? That's because they were creating a whole new OS, that was then code-named Longhorn. It was based on the .NET framework, and basically they found that too much change all at once just didn't work. People needed compatibility "bridges" and to take major changes like this slowly. That's how the transition from Windows 3.x to NT happened. Windows 9x was that Bridge" and took 6 years for it to complete.
The transition to WinRT is even longer in coming because it's much more of a change. But, like the previous transitions from DOS to 3.x to NT/XP, each new release brings more of the new OS.