[citation][nom]zak_mckraken[/nom]If they could have foreseen the future, it would have been : "Windows 95 : At least it's not Vista!"[/citation]
You know, as much as people complain about Vista, I didn't have any issues with it. Ran Vista Ultimate x64 for two years (until August 2009). Is Windows 7 better? Hell yes, but Vista wasn't bad. People just don't like learning curves, but it was that learning curve (in addition to bug fixes and feature enhancements) that made Windows 7 a success. If it went straight from XP to 7, I don't think there would have been as much praise for 7 as there was.
On the other hand, Windows ME was awful, freaking awful. I got that pre-installed (I can only imagine how much worse it was to "step it up" from Windows 98) and it was so broken everywhere. I would have to reboot a minimum of three times a day (at least with Vista I could leave it running for weeks without having to reboot).