And yet you still have a "command prompt" so that you can run your DOS programs as well as "compatibility mode" so that older applications can run on the post-XP systems.
That's backwards, though. MS wants to enable new systems to run old software, and they do this very well. The case in hand is running old software against new content, which they don't care about. The relevant comparison would be running IE10 against a cached copy of some website from 1999. I suspect that test would work rather well.
Well ... I do agree that both the standards and best-practices for creating web content have changed, but I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s. You could argue they have complete control of both the software and the document format in that instance, but the IE browsers never bothered to be standards compliant anyway ("older IE browsers" - I've been pleasantly surprised by IE9 and IE10).
> I'm pretty sure the most recent version of Excel will open a document I created in the '90s.
Backwards compatibility is not the same as forwards compatibility, you seem to be confusing them.
You expect an application like Excel to open something made before by an earlier version. MS knows how to handle that format. However, you do not expect Excel 95 to open a xlsx file, it was a format that did not exist when Excel 95 was created.
I think that you are confusing backwards/forwards compatibility with the point the OP seemed to be making: Microsoft never bothered to follow the web standards.
Yeah, it seems Microsoft always has had good excuses. I wonder if other browsers from that period would have as poor results as IE5 does. I seriously doubt it.
But the point is that a '90s copy of Excel running would not remotely be able to consume and display a modern .XLSX data file. Going back to the original point, this is why it's impressive that Wikipedia are able to display their site to such an old browser, and ironic that MS doesn't.
Unfortunately Microsoft has disabled or removed quite some import filters. e.g. you can't open a PowerPoint 4 file anywhere anymore.
They also disabled Works and Word Perfect filters. Probably a victim of the secure coding guidelines: Might have bugs ==> remove feature
It is because of security issues with old code that probably mostly dates back to Office 97 or older. How often do you receive Word 6.0 documents via email nowadays?
How one receieves such documents is irrelevant. Some years ago a relative passed away, leaving hundreds of such documents on her antique computer. Luckily there was free software available that would still allow us to take part of her legacy. But of course, we could just as well have burnt her computer to ashes, as something so ancient must obviously be a security issue.
These files came from a source that can be trusted and are much different from random email attachments. Look up "spear phishing" for example. Most of the converters that still exist can be reenabled in the registry in case you still need to open these files. Office 2010 even provides UI for these options.
Window's console app has nothing to do with the ability to run DOS applications and the bit that actually does, the DOS virtual machine, doesn't exist on 64-bit versions of windows.
Just because the computer in my microwave doesn't have a GUI or a CLI doesn't mean it isn't a computer.
The first computers dealt with input via switches and levers. I don't think anyone would call the Colossus[0] a toy, and it had nothing resembling the command prompt that we know today.
You can use a GUI-based programming system. An example might be Devpac (68000 assembly language editor/assembler/debugger) on the Atari ST.
(You could get command shells for the ST, because it was a programmable computer, so of course you could make it do pretty much whatever you wanted if you were willing to put the effort in. But the system didn't ship with a command line interface and (as I recall...) most of the programming environments - at least the ones popular in Europe - didn't include one either.)
GUI-based system still needs command shell or it will lose a lot of flexibility arising from being able to evaluate small bits of code and therefore code incrementally.