The windows 9 beta

LCDR (Join to see), I object. Apple will have perfectly patented iMats and iVisors by then. I'm sure they will

Oh, I'm sure you will. The problem is, the iMats will be very sleek and take nothing off your shoes, and the iVisors will cover about 1/8 of the window surface area, because that's how some industrial designer (secretly, Yohko Ono) decided it would be.

SSG Robert Burns Google makes a car that can drive itself. Apple is too busy reengineering the same devices they have.

Not sure about an Apple (iCar?) but this was supposedly GM's synopsis of what would happen if Microsoft never made one:

1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.
4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.
6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.
7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car default' warning light.
8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.
10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.

XP was the only upgrade I ever purchased, and that was only because 98 was too easily hacked and bugged at the time.

You get an AMEN for that. I'd still be using XP if I could get away with it. Linux Mint gives me the closest thing I can find to it - random, infuriating quirks and all.

XP was worth it over Windows 98 because I remember that lost driver issue always doing startup... or lost NTDL file... something which caused Win98 to not boot up.

The only reason XP was so stable was they finally fixed all bugs from windows 95, windows 98, and Window ME before they released it. Yes, with those 3 Versions out there 98 was the most stable of the 3 and it would last anywhere from 2 weeks to several months before your computer crashed and needed re-install. The other two versions, you were doing good getting two weeks. Oh the headaches and nightmare stories about 95. So many people stuck with 95 and then went to ME, while other went to 98 and then to ME and almost immediately back to 98.

Overall Vista wasn't really that of an OS. The major problem was the code that was being used, really needed to be completely overhauled. This is largely due to how much the computer systems and components had improved since XP original release and Vista release. There was code that could no long simply be patched, to fix, because it was never designed to work with subsystems working the way they were work, speed wise and other issues. Same thing windows 8 and windows 8.1. The phone windows interface isn't quite up to measure to scale up to the full size desktop or laptop computer. That and how many people still don't own smart phone or tablet, but own older window computers before getting Windows 8 machine. The next thing they were half ass on how various apps launch, I mean some launch in their own window, others take you back to the desktop. You can't put short that open say Word on your desktop, you can pin to the start menu outside of the desktop or on to the taskbar. One place take up space that is needed and the other you have go out of you desktop to open it, UGH.

I am hoping Windows 10 what they are calling it now fixes some of these issues. Trying to get away from problems and issue they have ran into with 8 and 8.1 so going straight to 10. Much like calling version after Vista, Windows 7 even though if you look at it closely it was Windows 6.9...something or other.

I dream of an OS that is better than "not that bad"

Linux is out there

Actually, since you mentioned it, I don't have any experience with Linux. How is the compatibility with Windows-based programs?

The irony here is, that Microsoft for the last 20 years has pushed Windows and tried to get way from command line based operating system. Yet, in the last 5 years or so starting with the Windows 7. The truth with the matter as point out, that every other window release seems to have more issues, that was largely caused by processor speed, mother board throughput, memory capabilities, and better graphics abilities all improved right before the release of the OS, to catching up the tweaks to various module not happen until the Service Packs were released. It was the major reason why XP hung around so long, was due to everything jumping ahead at odd times. With the next upgrade lagging, because every time they got closed, something new came out, they had to test it. By 2007, they it came down to point to either pull the trigger, or put it off forever. Unlike Apple they don't control the production of the machine their OS works on, so it never going to be predictable until after an OS is officially release. I think that is a part of the thing we all forget, even myself at times. Microsoft can't sit there and predict what all the PC manufacture will put out, they can only guess, and ship a product that they hope will b able to make these system work properly. Sometimes they get it right, other times, they fail. Microsoft Windows OS is really DOS based, and DOS was never as forgiven as OS as Unix based OS systems.