[joe_the_user]

I actually Microsoft UI's have been good if not the best for usability in terms of accomplishing a task over time.

MS' main problem has been the "ugly on first blush" problem and even then, their interfaces have been ugly in the way an American cars, a twelve year old boy's toy hero or a supermarket tabloid are ugly. They've been flashy. lowest common denominators items that work perfectly for their intended purposes.

[ugh]

You are kidding, right?

One example: Have you ever actually tried to change settings or preferences in any version of Windows (for the PC)? It’s a clusterfuck and it hasn’t gotten better. The problem is not that it is ugly, the problem is that it is a pain to use.

Windows 7 has done many things right and is pretty awesome in many respects but there are important areas where its usability cannot reasonably be called good.

[Game_Ender]

Yep. I was installing a network printer on both XP and Windows 7 after Christmas. Those configuration dialogs have not changed in a decade, and you could scarcely call them "usable" back them.

[smspence]

Seriously? Installing a network printer on Windows 7 is super easy and almost completely automatic.

[code_duck]

The 'control panel' has always been a god awful nightmare... sure enough, in 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista and 7, it's disorganized and confusing, the changes they've made notwithstanding. Contrast this with Apple's System Preferences, and it's clear MS needs a basic philosophical change in how they design interfaces such as this.

[michaelcampbell]

You're right, and I'm playing my even-more cynical self here, but the problem with this action is that they have 2 choices - change it to be like Apple's philosophy, in which case they'll get sued by Apple for using Apple's patented "a vowel occurs in every word" technology(1) or they'll change it to be NOT like Apple's, in which case it'll be different from both Apple and MS, and no one will like it or be able to figure it out since it's neither intuitive nor familiar.

(1) There is no such patent.

[megablast]

The problem is also that every new OS they decide to move everything around. So if you do know it, now you do not. One thing I really enjoy learning every new OS is where all the settings are, that is so much fun.

This is one reason I think people stay with XP so much, there are too many stupid changes. I couldn't be bothered learning all the new stuff with Vista/7, so I skipped them both.