Re: As ever
"They truly are different beasts and on the whole a much, much better company."
you mean better NOW as opposed to THEN? Better NOW??? W.T.F. ???
I do not think that means what you think it means...
Microsoft was at its peak around XP release time. This may explain why XP went for so long without any major changes [just service packs]. It screwed the pooch completely when they started messing with something that worked just fine as it was [just needed patching and updates fo keep up with hardware tech].
I think they should've just kept XP...