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> So much of Windows' headaches stem from not wanting to break things Quite acceptable for not having the headache for things breaking.

• notepad0x90 1y ago
  I am not disagreeing, but it is a design fault if you continually end up having to choose between breaking or improving things. When you have major platform updates like windows NT rewrite back in 2000, windows 8 and now windows 11, they're opportunities to shed legacy things. The choice should have been to keep supporting a long-term-stable version of windows for security fixes (like XP or Win7) and get rid of tech designed to support old software. Their problem now is they want everyone to be on win10 and then win11 and then whatever they come up with, or else. You can carry legacy dependencies with you to new major versions or you can support old versions for security fixes long-term.
  • sedatk 1y ago
    I empathize with the sentiment, but I think Microsoft isn't that conservative. Since XP, they have continuously dropped hundreds of features and components with varying significance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Wi... That said, there isn't a one to one correlation between the gains of dropping a legacy component and the increased capability to innovate either. Windows is highly modular, and maintaining legacy compatibility rarely is a blocker for a line of innovation, nor is a high budget workload. I wonder though, what kind of innovation do you want to see but think that it's held back by legacy components?