[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe under the covers it was a patch to IE, but MS presented it as a patch for XP ==>> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=18770

As did http://www.techadvisory.org/2017/06/...tting-updates/ and http://www.itsecureservices.com/2017...curity-update/

<shrug> IE is built into Windows, and part of the OS, with components that are part of IE getting use elsewhere as well.

I suppose if you want to call an IE patch an XP patch too, it's fair enough.

There are still rather more XP installations than MS can be happy about. They wanted to EOL XP earlier, but had to change plans because of the revenue XP still generated.

And Vista was a three ring circus. Each new version of Windows historically required more powerful hardware. MS was pushing system vendors to pre-load Vista instead of XP on new systems, but Vista really wanted more hardware than systems then in the pipeline had. The machines wouldn't pass MS's own certification tests. So they created a new layer - Windows Capable rather than Windows Certified - so that OEMs could put the official Windows sticker on machines.

Former Microsoft SVP Jim Allchin was livid. He was in charge of Windows development, and felt that move would lead to an unhappy customer experience and give MS Yet Another Black Eye in the marketplace. Then MS CEO Ken Ballmer said "I had nothing to do with that decision." Maybe not, Ken, but the guy who made that call would have been a direct report, and you damn well knew about it.

Most of the problems I recall with Vista were side effects of trying to run it on systems that weren't powerful enough. Had MS waited six months till the next generation of hardware that could run Vista acceptably was out before trying to switch, many problems could have been avoided. But they wanted to EOL XP and make Vista the new cash cow, so...
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Dennis