Actually it was a great marketing tactic to get people to think their existing Windows was 'old' and they needed to get the newest one. That's why they went to

Actually it was a great marketing tactic to get people to think their existing Windows was 'old' and they needed to get the newest one. That's why they went to using years (Windows 95) because every consumer knows if they have the current year or not. But Microsoft started missing those 'year' deadlines and then went back to numbers, and THEN more people starting getting hip to the fact that some Windows versions were worse than than the version they already had, and here we are - Microsoft still splashing around trying to figure out how to make their mobile OS work on desktops and how to charge people for it. They've been trying since the 90s and haven't figured it out yet.