Off on the wrong foot already
Microsoft can't afford another Vista debacle. No matter how good, secure, pretty, easy-to-use etc. Windows 7 ends up, the fact that EVERYBODY is looking for a mis-step in the release is really more important to address than the actual features.
In the case of this UAC "issue", all Microsoft's management needed to do was say "yes, well, you have a possible good point. We'll look into it and give a technical explanation of how we'll address it by the release date."
Microsoft has to realize by now (and the contrite response at the end of this report show that they DO GET IT) that one more release that has the problems Vista was perceived to have is going to cost them dearly - specifically on the corporate desktop and server. Companies have put up with having large IT staffs who mostly deal with Windows patches, security issues and user screw-ups. The issue for large corporations is that this is becoming the primary cost center for their IT department. Even outsourcing this job to India or China doesn't make it go away, and it doesn't really lower the cost of having systems "go down" for bug fixes and updates - which a problem or patch WILL do regularly in the real world.
IT department managers are already beginning to realize that their maintenance costs keep going UP not down, and each problem is more expensive than the last. Conficker opened a lot of eyes over the past couple of weeks: the cost of fixing this relatively simple attack has hit home, not because of the attack itself, but discovering that there are about 10-20% of corporate systems that could NOT be patched immediately because of expensive, custom "legacy" applications that need to be moved onto newer OS releases, at a huge rewrite cost. The IT directors are getting hammered for having the infection in their system, and they're getting hammered for needing to take down "core" applications to fix it. And their budgets are going up in smoke just patching the holes in the dike. Then they notice that their {*nix/mainframe/Apple} systems aren't getting hit the same way, that they have 1/5 the staff managing these platforms and the cost isn't bulging up every time a script kiddie discovers a new toy to play with.
Microsoft absolutely MUST be able to take the message to the world that their product is engineered safe and efficient, and that when the inevitable problem DOES occur that they can fix it quickly without impacting all the old legacy applications running the businesses that buy their product. And it ain't going to require opening another support center ANYWHERE just to have the asses and elbows to rush around 1000 systems and slap patches.
Redmond's got about six months to get this message done and done right. If Windows 7 has ANY issues even CLOSE to Vista, it'll be "hasta la vista" to Microsoft in the corporate environment within 18 months, and probably in the consumer market just as quickly.
We'll see how they react.