Microsoft didn't kill Silverlight, the iPad killed Silverlight. As for VB6, I think many here would agree that it was better off killed. You can still run VB6 apps on even Windows 8 though.
I disagree. Microsoft killed Silverlight. Your iPad argument means that we should all just skip native development and stick with HTML5.
Either Silverlight or WPF should be the favored Windows desktop development environment. Instead, they are both EOL and the incomplete Metro environment is the current way to do Windows desktop development.
In fact, if you are a Microsoft developer, you've lost Win32, MFC, ATL, WinForms, WPF, and Silverlight. The Windows desktop developer currently is waiting to see how Metro improves.
Um... Without Win32 there is no WinRT (do you think Windows isn't Windows anymore because of the advent of a new touch-first user experience and app model (with a centralized app store with simple and predictable app install/uninstall/update mechanics)?)
Without Win32 there is no Windows shell, touch first or not... There is no Visual Studio, Office, Photoshop, Premiere, etc, etc... You can have something new, different and still have what has always been there. This is what compatibility is all about... Can you run Windows 7 (and Windows XP) applications on Windows 8? Yes, of course you can.
Don't mistake the things you can't do in the WinRT environment (Win32 APIs you can't call, for example) with the end of those things (and what they are a part of)... MFC shipped a new version in 2012. WPF is at version 4.5. ATL is just a "high" level way to program COM just like WinRT, in fact... You don't need ATL any time you program to a COM-based ABI. You don't need WPF to build XAML-based WinRT apps. On x86 machines, there is a desktop for a reason and the reason is the same as it's always been.
All of those kits still work though and will continue to work for a long, long time. More than a decade, probably two. And...at least 3 of them are better kits than the unholy triumvirate of html, js and css.
As a developer in the Microsoft ecosystem - I have lost nothing and only gained new choices at each turn of events. That's because we run Windows internally and so do all of our clients and partners. Now tell me which one of those kits I can't use to build an app for them?
Windows RT is DOA so I'm safely ignoring Metro and it's lame sandbox...at least until general purpose computers are outlawed :)
Which itself could be traced back to Adobe trying to make Flash -> native iOS a thing. Apple's process is too expensive to manage the flood of games that would come from that.
Microsoft killed Silverlight like Adobe killed Flash. Ipad killed nothing. And it is not the first product MS kills. they did it and will do again and again ,... that's the price to pay when relying on closed technologies.
Either Silverlight or WPF should be the favored Windows desktop development environment. Instead, they are both EOL and the incomplete Metro environment is the current way to do Windows desktop development.
In fact, if you are a Microsoft developer, you've lost Win32, MFC, ATL, WinForms, WPF, and Silverlight. The Windows desktop developer currently is waiting to see how Metro improves.