Microsoft Windows after 25 years: A visual history

Windows has come a long way since 1985. Where will it go next?

Windows Vista: The marketing flop

Release date: Jan. 30, 2007

Vista was a marketing flop, with even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitting that it "was just not executed well." Vista was widely criticized for privacy, security and performance issues, as well as media copyright restrictions, and most businesses opted to stick with XP. But Microsoft managed to sell more than 100 million Vista licenses in its first year of availability. Most vendors would kill for that kind of failure. Microsoft, for its part, boasts that Vista featured "an updated graphical user interface, a redesigned search function, multimedia tools including Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print and display subsystems," and support diagnostics.

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