[anonymars]

Yes, but that doesn't solve the customer's problem

And what does the customer do if the vendor has discontinued it? Or charges for an upgrade? Or has gone out of business?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20031224-00/?p=41...

I'm pretty sure another one was "what if you're wrong/have a false positive detection, and slander another company, one with lawyers?"

[topspin]

> And what does the customer do if the vendor has discontinued it? Or charges for an upgrade? Or has gone out of business?

Those can all be filed under Not My Problem (as in, Microsoft's problem,) and safely ignored. On the other hand, when Highly Influential So-And-So upgrades from 3.1 to 95 or whatever, and Very Population Application v4.9.6 starts falling over, Microsoft gets the black eye whether they deserve it or not. The whole equation changes.

[Hackbraten]

> Those can all be filed under Not My Problem (as in, Microsoft's problem,) and safely ignored.

It was absolutely Microsoft’s problem. Had it ignored compatibility issues, what incentives would users have had to buy Windows 95?