One, the applications that matter to people are changing. For many people, programs like web browsers and iTunes are now opened frequently, whereas a decade ago

One, the applications that matter to people are changing. For many people, programs like web browsers and iTunes are now opened frequently, whereas a decade ago those apps either didn't exist or weren't nearly as relevant. So who is to say that 2 decades of Windows software adds up to much these days? Ignoring old applications that an enterprise needs to use, the amount of aplications that Windows has in the last 2 years are very vast, and lots of people need them. Then there's the fact that desktop programs have grown and grown, and most users don't seem to adopt even a fraction of the features. What took two decades to develop will not take two decades to "replace", because only a fraction of the features will really be required for most people to make the jump. Not everyone uses the same 20% of features. Joel Spolsky said it better than me: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html Besides, develop the core of the programs doesn't mean they are useful or polish. Or that people who hates change (like the ones who hate the Office ribbon) will like to learn to use another program. And most of those huge apps should have been stopped at version 2.0. After awhile, big version numbers are meaningless; even for Apple, what on Earth makes the latest iTunes worthy of a version 8? They're still over-hyping the software, but not much is being added, so these old apps are not really as sophisticated as they appear to be. Versions are usually overhyped, after all they need to sell. That doesn't mean they haven't do anything worthy. The majority of software is very different between 2 major versions.