[mschuster91]

> and marks a clear regression in Microsoft's attitudes toward backwards compatibility.

Yeah... but for what purpose should it have been kept? Anyone with a legitimate need to run 16 bit software on a modern Windows machine can always go for virtualization or emulation. The effort required in supporting that technology is far from zero, and old code to work with legacy stuff - no matter in which project - is always a fruitful source of security exploits.

[EvanAnderson]

My observation is the "old Microsoft" would have kept it in and supported it because that's how they rolled. The lack of NTVDM in x64 Windows signaled a change that the commitment to compatibility is now on shaky ground.

Whether it should have been kept for a technical reason is secondary, in my mind, to eroding the confidence their Customers had that old software would continue to work.

The market doesn't seem to give a damn so I guess they made the right call.