Defcon said:

There's nothing 'wrong' with Vista as a modern OS. However it is far far removed from the the vision its designers and developers intended, and what they showed at PDC 03. This happened due to a variety of reasons - the Reset, decisions to abandon huge features like WinFS, not using managed code (perf problems too) etc.

But reasons don't matter. The end result is an OS which is merely good, not excellent, not stellar. And those are things we should expect from a company with as much talent and resources as Microsoft. And so should they.

Wow, I still remember PDC 03 -  I was 14 at the time and I can't even express how excited I was watching all those demos and listening to all those promises.  And you gotta admit, at the time, what they were showing off was truly revolutionary.  So I'd have to agree with you, there really nothing is wrong with Vista and to the general public its a great OS, but to us, who are interested in technology and who were following the development process of it for years and years, I think its us that are disappointed the most not even because of what it is, but what it could've been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf29haATORQ - Who still remembers that video?  Exciting times those were Smiley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q7xZ2ACyg0 - This was byfar my favorite clip though