Is Windows Vista the biggest PR failure in Microsoft's history?

Earlier today we mentioned some of the latest FUD from Gartner, which was directed at the GNU/Linux server/desktop in particular. Always remember the Gartner-Microsoft connection and also remember how Microsoft views analysts.

Recently Microsoft posted their profits for 2007. Despite Vista being one of the worst disasters to hit the computer systems markets since Windows ME, Microsoft seemed to come out way ahead... or did they?

Gartner says Windows is "collapsing." Well, sure. Strictly speaking, Windows itself isn't in a state of collapse -- Windows XP is still useful to a huge population of customers. But for Vista and the Windows franchise as a whole, things do not look good.

Not only did Windows Vista - billed by Microsoft as its biggest operating system for 10 years - fail to distinguish Microsoft's latest fiscal year from previous, non-Windows-Vista years, but Microsoft also missed its own expectations by several million dollars.

A federal judge has said consumers may go ahead with a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft over the way it advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista operating system.

The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the much-touted "Aero" user interface.

What a coup Microsoft has pulled off. After getting millions of people all over the world to shell out for the sugar-frosted turd that was Windows Vista, here we are three years later at the Windows 7 launch, and Microsoft has people practically falling over themselves to pay more money so they don’t have to use Vista any more.

Microsoft’s Windows juggernaut is collapsing as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute. Meanwhile, Windows has outgrown hardware and customers are pondering skipping Vista to wait for Windows 7. If Windows is going to remain relevant it will need radical changes.

A few days ago i published a short article describing how Windows Vista would accept incorrect passwords at the login screen. Now, as if God/Microsoft her/himself had intervened, my Vista connected to the network, installed some unspecified update, and the password problem is solved. The weird thing is - Vista refuses to connect to my WLAN, so it shouldn't have been able to get any updates.