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Comment by revelation | Hacker News Reader

I think you're mistaking feature creep with their crazy good backwards compatibility. They simply can't remove anything.

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Exactly. Which leads to some of the most awful and crazy designs decisions.

Look at the upgrade to 64 bit. In Windows 16 bit days you had the C:\Windows\System directory. In Windows 32 bit, you gained C:\Windows\System32 for your system libraries. In Windows 64 bit you would assume C:\Windows\System64 right? Nope. 64 bit dlls go in to System32 and 32bit dlls go into SysWOW64. WTF?

Same goes with Program Files (32 bit) etc. They are pretty much screwed by legacy.

The windows mobile, XBox, and WinRT guys must feel so much better than having to work on Windows core because they don't have to deal with supporting 17+ years of software still running on their platform.

Though I agree with your general point about Microsoft being hampered by legacy support (but for other reasons such as having 2 UI paradigms of Metro and Windows together), I don't think this is the best example. The everyday user really doesn't care what folder their software is installed to as long as its easily accessible from the desktop/programs.

That is until they need to scavenge and mess around the file system because of a virus, failed uninstall, missing DLL or something. Then they really care.

If that's the problem, what's the better approach to solving it: cleaning up the file system organization, or making it so that those things don't happen and make people mess around with the file system in the first place (e.g. by introducing a declarative isolated application model such as AppX in Windows 8)?

The big issue that comes out of that mindset is that it's people that do work in those folders that end up telling laymen that stuff is done stupid, opening up a nice spot for apple and it's simple and easy everything to come in and take away sales. (Or my favorite, when I can manage to get someone to try out Ubuntu :) )

I'd say their bigger problem is that they can't say "no" to anything (which is a consequence of their enterprise focus)

And now you've got me wondering if it would be possible for microsoft to spin off a whole new company (or just division) to build an os or products under a new brand with no backwards compatibility or tie to the past. So the current products would be kept for enterprises and the new one could target consumers.

Have any companies of this size done this successfully? It would require a lot of work but could help them greatly in the consumer space.

Xbox is a good example of this working in a new cooler market , it has so few ties with microsoft that some of my 10 - 15 year old cousins who dislike microsoft don't even realize the xbox is a microsoft product.

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