Real Vista Issues

[soonerproud]

Griffinhart made an excellent post in a previous thread that too much attention was being paid to all the FUD about Vista being spread over the net, and not enough on real issues.

I do wish that MS wouldn't have the many editions of Windows. I could live with the Pro vs Home thing that XP started because the features you lost in Home were really features that a home user would never actually want to use. That's not the case in Vista. Previous Versions/shadow copy should be included in all versions. Limiting extremely useful features like Previous versions to Ultimate and Business editions isn't good. It's a feature that everyone would find useful and not just the power/business users.

Frankly, I think too much focus is put on all the FUD and other false statements about Vista and not enough on stuff like this. It all distracts from the real issues with Vista.

I agree with this statement and thought we could have a good discussion on these real issues about Vista. Since that previous thread was somewhat of a Vista bashing thread, I thought a new thread should be made where an honest discussion of these real issues take place.

This thread is not a Vista bashing thread. If you are not willing to discuss these real issues and are only here to bash Vista, please refrain from posting. There are plenty other threads where you can bash Vista to your delight.

The biggest issues with Vista in my opinion are as follows.

1. Too many sku's. Leopard has only one version as does Ubuntu, yet Microsoft has chosen to confuse us with too many versions of Vista. There should only be one version of Vista that users can easily customize to fit their needs. Microsoft has blown it on this one.

2. Vista Ultimate is too expensive. I understand that Microsoft is in the business to make a profit, but the price they want the consumer to pay for Ultimate is way too expensive. OSX cost $129, yet Vista Ultimate is $200 for an OEM version. This is outrageous for a consumer operating system. Microsoft should consider dropping all other versions of Vista and dropping the price of Ultimate to under $150 for an OEM version. Since Microsoft gives us service packs for free, (Apple charges for theirs) a drop to $150 would be a great value, even if it raises prices slightly on low end pc's. Microsoft could consider keeping XP around for the value segment market at it's current oem prices if this is a issue.

3. No easy way to add/remove features. This is a really big complaint among Vista users that they are forced to accept the bloat from Redmond. I agree that it should be easy to add/remove any feature you want from Vista, that does not affect security. Vista should be customizable with package options that people can choose upon installation to make it quick and easy for users to get the features they want. When users are done installing, they can then fine tune it to their liking.

4. DRM. This is something that should be optional. If a person does not want to use their pc's to play protected content, like blue-ray, then they should not be forced to have the DRM installed. Microsoft needs to stand up to the entertainment industry and quit forcing DRM down users throats.

5. Horrid marketing. My god, can we count all the ways that Microsoft has screwed up the marketing on Vista. From it's Vista Capable fiasco, to the "WOW starts now" flop, Microsoft has a horrid marketing department. Apple is the model Microsoft needs to study because they are brilliant at marketing their products.


These are some of my thoughts, what are some of yours?

 

[Nothinman]

2. Vista Ultimate is too expensive. I understand that Microsoft is in the business to make a profit, but the price they want the consumer to pay for Ultimate is way too expensive. OSX cost $129, yet Vista Ultimate is $200 for an OEM version. This is outrageous for a consumer operating system. Microsoft should consider dropping all other versions of Vista and dropping the price of Ultimate to under $150 for an OEM version. Since Microsoft gives us service packs for free, (Apple charges for theirs) a drop to $150 would be a great value, even if it raises prices slightly on low end pc's. Microsoft could consider keeping XP around for the value segment market at it's current oem prices if this is a issue.

XP was released in 2002 at $299 retail. So given that it's now 6 years later that one time cost would run you $50/year. If you bought OEM and kept the same machine this whole time or just ignored the EULA and kept the license on new hardware then it's even less. Outrageous? I hardly think so.

4. DRM. This is something that should be optional. If a person does not want to use their pc's to play protected content, like blue-ray, then they should not be forced to have the DRM installed. Microsoft needs to stand up to the entertainment industry and quit forcing DRM down users throats.

If anything this should be filed with point #3. Having the capability to have play DRM'd content is nothing more than another feature that should be optional and MS is in no way forcing it down anyone's throat. If you don't want to play protected content don't play protected content.

5. Horrid marketing. My god, can we count all the ways that Microsoft has screwed up the marketing on Vista. From it's Vista Capable fiasco, to the "WOW starts now" flop, Microsoft has a horrid marketing department. Apple is the model Microsoft needs to study because they are brilliant at marketing their products.

It's kind of ironic since marketing is how MS built their empire, but it's a pretty moot point right now. Just about everyone using Windows will move to Vista eventually so it's not like they even have to really try to push it.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
XP was released in 2002 at $299 retail. So given that it's now 6 years later that one time cost would run you $50/year. If you bought OEM and kept the same machine this whole time or just ignored the EULA and kept the license on new hardware then it's even less. Outrageous? I hardly think so.

This is an excellent point, and I am not entirely in disagreement with you here. However, when you compare the initial cost of the operating system to others like OSX or paid versions of Linux, this does not look like such a good deal up front. Maybe Microsoft should just have one EULA, drop the price and enforce that EULA more consistently.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
If anything this should be filed with point #3. Having the capability to have play DRM'd content is nothing more than another feature that should be optional and MS is in no way forcing it down anyone's throat. If you don't want to play protected content don't play protected content.

Agreed, this point should be filed under point number 3. My biggest complaint with the DRM included with Vista is the overhead it may add to the system resources. At this point, I can't remove DRM to see if it ups the performance of Vista in any way. This pisses me off to no end that I have absolutely no control over this.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
It's kind of ironic since marketing is how MS built their empire, but it's a pretty moot point right now. Just about everyone using Windows will move to Vista eventually so it's not like they even have to really try to push it.

True, they will eventually move to Vista. However, a lot of the FUD being spread about Vista is directly related to Microsoft's poor marketing strategy. They may have been geniuses at marketing Windows in the past, but today they are doing nothing more than making it look bad.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: Nothinman
It's kind of ironic since marketing is how MS built their empire, but it's a pretty moot point right now. Just about everyone using Windows will move to Vista eventually so it's not like they even have to really try to push it.

True, they will eventually move to Vista. However, a lot of the FUD being spread about Vista is directly related to Microsoft's poor marketing strategy. They may have been geniuses at marketing Windows in the past, but today they are doing nothing more than making it look bad.

MS could do a lot more in promoting a lot of the really good stuff that they have been working on. Media Center being what I am getting at here. Your average person has no idea what this thing is about. It's a shame since it really is a great product. Especially when combined with Extenders. MS is supposedly all about the digital home and lifestyle yet they seem to miss the opportunity to actively push and advertise this stuff even though there many Windows boxes installed with Media Center MCE2005 and Vista. Add to the fact of the 10s of millions of 360's owners that can make use of this stuff, why aren't they doing more here?

 

[Nothinman]

This is an excellent point, and I am not entirely in disagreement with you here. However, when you compare the initial cost of the operating system to others like OSX or paid versions of Linux, this does not look like such a good deal up front. Maybe Microsoft should just have one EULA, drop the price and enforce that EULA more consistently.

I doubt MS really cares about retail pricing very much since so many of their consumer licenses are sold via OEMs. But if you're not taking the amount of time/usage you'll be getting out of something into consideration when you buy it then that's your own stupid fault.

Agreed, this point should be filed under point number 3. My biggest complaint with the DRM included with Vista is the overhead it may add to the system resources. At this point, I can't remove DRM to see if it ups the performance of Vista in any way. This pisses me off to no end that I have absolutely no control over this.

From what I understand there is no overhead when playing unprotected files. It's like complaining that having the print spooler running is killing performance even though you don't have a printer. There might be a bit of memory used and maybe a few ms adding during startup but unless something tries to print, or in this case request that the DRM stuff check on a media license, it's going to sit there idle.

True, they will eventually move to Vista. However, a lot of the FUD being spread about Vista is directly related to Microsoft's poor marketing strategy. They may have been geniuses at marketing Windows in the past, but today they are doing nothing more than making it look bad.

Yea but since Windows is essentially on the level of other required utilities like water and electricity in most businesses it doesn't matter how bad they make it look. I hope that's not the case in the near future but right now MS could rename Windows to "Haha n00bs! 1.0" and people would still have to buy it.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
MS could do a lot more in promoting a lot of the really good stuff that they have been working on. Media Center being what I am getting at here. Your average person has no idea what this thing is about. It's a shame since it really is a great product. Especially when combined with Extenders. MS is supposedly all about the digital home and lifestyle yet they seem to miss the opportunity to actively push and advertise this stuff even though there many Windows boxes installed with Media Center MCE2005 and Vista. Add to the fact of the 10s of millions of 360's owners that can make use of this stuff, why aren't they doing more here?

Some of their Windows Live software and services suffer from this too. Windows Live Photo Gallery, Writer and Mail are all excellent products and are what should have shipped with Vista from the start.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I doubt MS really cares about retail pricing very much since so many of their consumer licenses are sold via OEMs. But if you're not taking the amount of time/usage you'll be getting out of something into consideration when you buy it then that's your own stupid fault.

There are a lot of stupid people out there.

I was looking at this more from a public relations aspect. Microsoft could really improve their image with the consumer by dropping retail licenses, lowering prices, offering only one customizable version and having an easy and low cost license transfer policy for enthusiast who frequently upgrade mother boards. These things would go along way to improving both Microsoft's and Vista's image.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
From what I understand there is no overhead when playing unprotected files. It's like complaining that having the print spooler running is killing performance even though you don't have a printer. There might be a bit of memory used and maybe a few ms adding during startup but unless something tries to print, or in this case request that the DRM stuff check on a media license, it's going to sit there idle.

From what I have researched, the evidence points in this direction, but is impossible to completely confirm. If I had the opportunity to remove the DRM, I could put my mind at ease that this is the case.

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Yea but since Windows is essentially on the level of other required utilities like water and electricity in most businesses it doesn't matter how bad they make it look. I hope that's not the case in the near future but right now MS could rename Windows to "Haha n00bs! 1.0" and people would still have to buy it.

I suspect as more computing moves to the cloud, this will be less the case. I doubt that enterprises will be quick to embrace cloud computing, so this is still some time off.

 

[Nothinman]

There are a lot of stupid people out there.

I was looking at this more from a public relations aspect. Microsoft could really improve their image with the consumer by dropping retail licenses, lowering prices, offering only one customizable version and having an easy and low cost license transfer policy for enthusiast who frequently upgrade mother boards. These things would go along way to improving both Microsoft's and Vista's image.

And those stupid people generally take whatever's given to them with their store-bought PC so it works out. Enthusiats are the minority by far so I really doubt they care about catering to them.

I suspect as more computing moves to the cloud, this will be less the case. I doubt that enterprises will be quick to embrace cloud computing, so this is still some time off.

Yea, MS has a very long time to think about how to tackle this.

 

[Griffinhart]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
Some of their Windows Live software and services suffer from this too. Windows Live Photo Gallery, Writer and Mail are all excellent products and are what should have shipped with Vista from the start.

I love Windows Live Photo Gallery. I've tried a number of photo management packages and it is by far my favorite.

 

[C1]

2. Vista Ultimate is too expensive. I understand that Microsoft is in the business to make a profit, but the price they want the consumer to pay for Ultimate is way too expensive. OSX cost $129, yet Vista Ultimate is $200 for an OEM version. This is outrageous for a consumer operating system. Microsoft should consider dropping all other versions of Vista and dropping the price of Ultimate to under $150 for an OEM version. Since Microsoft gives us service packs for free, (Apple charges for theirs) a drop to $150 would be a great value, even if it raises prices slightly on low end pc's. Microsoft could consider keeping XP around for the value segment market at it's current oem prices if this is a issue.

As pointed out on one of the local computer talk shows, it wasnt that long ago that the price of a new computer was $2K & paying $200 for the OS wasnt as large a percent of the total system cost. However, the average new computer price is significantly less with the result that the ask price for the OS could now easily be as much as 30% of the hardware suite.


===============

PS: When computer related prices come up I sometimes attach my photo of the ad for RadioShack's Tandy 5000 MC (Professional) System taken from their 1989 catalog. $8499 got you the 20MHz Intel 80386 processor with 2Mb RAM, 256K color VGA graphics. Monitor & mouse were not included (& I dont even see mention of an HDD, but you did get DOS 3.3).

 

[RebateMonger]

n.m.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
The biggest issues with Vista in my opinion are as follows.

1. Too many sku's...
2. Vista Ultimate is too expensive.
3. No easy way to add/remove features.
4. DRM.
5. Horrid marketing.

These are some of my thoughts, what are some of yours?

Regarding "too many SKUs", I don't really think this is a huge problem for most consumers. There are effectively just 2 that come pre-installed on most systems: Home Basic and Home Premium. If you buy a retail copy, then you might also buy Ultimate. So there are 3 SKUs that most people might encounter, and differentiating these isn't terribly difficult. Sure, there might be SOME confusion, but the vast majority of consumers just take whatever version of Vista happens to come with the PC they buy. Most people never buy a retail copy of Windows.

Regarding "expense", again you're talking about retail copies, and frankly I agree. The price differential between a retail copy of Ultimate and a bulk OEM copy of Home Premium is ridiculous, considering that 90% of the OS components are identical.

In my opinion, the biggest problems with Vista are resource consumption, user experience let-downs, and hardware compatibility. I will break these down into what I see are the major culprits:

1. Too many background services and processes. On a quiescent system, the average Vista box is running something like 40 processes without even a single application open! Vista has something like 75 auto-startup services running in svchost.exe processes, doing all sorts of background activity. While these are "invisible" to an average user, they absolutely contribute to higher startup and shutdown latency, as well as higher overall memory consumption and disk paging activity. This overhead has increased substantially from XP. My 2nd Vista system currently has 678 threads running, and I have no applications open whatsoever!

2. The Search Indexer service behaves terribly. Ideally, indexing should happen as a background activity when the system has idle resources to spare. The key key design goals should be 1) make searches faster and 2) otherwise stay out of the way. The triggering mechanism to launch the Search Indexer is far too sensitive, leading to "fights" between Applications writing data files and the Search Indexer attempting to index those files immediately. This is horrible. Worse, one mechanism that could make the Search Indexer less obnoxious would be to use only low-priority I/O (a new feature in Vista's kernel), but the Search Indexer doesn't make use. So you have created the macabre situation where the Indexing service, in an effort to make potential future searches faster, slows down primary functionality like checking your Inbox in Outlook. Terrible.

3. Trusted Installer is slow and runs at times other than 3am. When your system is checking for updates or installing a patch, you will see TrustedInstaller.exe taking up an entire CPU core for minutes on end. What is it doing with so many CPU cycles? Good question. The setup engine in Vista appears to be pathetically slow, and when background updates are getting applied, your system will slow to a crawl until they are done. The typical user has no idea WHY the system is slow. Sophisticated users look at Task Manager and see TrustedInstaller running and still have very little clue: after all, *they* didn't ask to install anything! Worse, you might expect updates to occur only at 3am, but in reality many updates are applied after next boot, which is a terrible user experience because the user is sitting there trying to log in and use the PC, but TrustedInstaller is hogging it to patch a component that the user probably has never even run.

4. UAC. In a valiant but ultimately misguided attempt to secure all Win32 programs by introducing the stripped Administrative token, Microsoft has instead only managed to annoy users. The continual prompts for "Do you really want to do XYZ?" are not only annoying, they are counter-productive from a security standpoint: users are trained to click "Allow" or "Continue" so frequently that they don't even pause to think about what they are doing. The user experience for some scenarios is absolutely comical, with back-to-back "Do you want to continue?" type messages occurring in sequence. And while it is possible to disable UAC, most don't know how. (Note that UAC is separate and distinct from the concepts of IE sandboxing and process "integrity"; these features I appreciate.)

5. Driver model changes created too many device incompatibilities at launch. While the blame here is by no means entirely at Microsoft's feet, I think the Windows team could have done a better job of ensuring backwards device compatibility for peripherals like printers, which is by far the #1 on the customer complaint list. It would not be beyond Microsoft's capabilities to develop a "XP-compatibility" shim for printers. Some IHVs (like HP) intentionally disable their driver packages from installing on Vista, because they have cut off support for that particular model and want you to buy a new one. With a compatibility shim, XP drivers could be "fooled" into installing on Vista anyway.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Griffinhart
I love Windows Live Photo Gallery. I've tried a number of photo management packages and it is by far my favorite.

Agreed

This was the one I finally replaced Google Picasa with. People that have not tried this don't know what they are missing out on.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: kylef

Regarding "too many SKUs", I don't really think this is a huge problem for most consumers. There are effectively just 2 that come pre-installed on most systems: Home Basic and Home Premium. If you buy a retail copy, then you might also buy Ultimate. So there are 3 SKUs that most people might encounter, and differentiating these isn't terribly difficult. Sure, there might be SOME confusion, but the vast majority of consumers just take whatever version of Vista happens to come with the PC they buy. Most people never buy a retail copy of Windows.

As we all are well aware of, Home Basic is a huge disappointment and should be discontinued. I agree that the vast majority just take what comes on the PC, but many are disappointed when the version they have lacks a feature they want. This is what the class action law suit against Microsoft is about. Though I think these users have no real case, having just one version would have saved Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees alone.

Originally posted by: kylef
In my opinion, the biggest problems with Vista are resource consumption, user experience let-downs, and hardware compatibility. I will break these down into what I see are the major culprits:

Quite true. These were the types of issues this thread was started for.

Originally posted by: kylef
1. Too many background services and processes.

QFT! One way Microsoft could address this is by having more services set to manual by default. I personally have shut off over 14 processes from running at startup this way.

Originally posted by: kylef
2. The Search Indexer service behaves terribly.

I was under the impression that the search indexer service was under low priority IO because the indexer will slow down while you are using the computer. I have observed this while rebuilding the index manually. Microsoft has released a test version of Search 4.0 that seems to address some of this bad behavior.


3. Trusted Installer is slow and runs at times other than 3am.

Windows Defender is the biggest culprit here. Turning it off completely, partially fixes this, but you sacrifice the software explorer. I suspect DRM may also be another culprit.

4. UAC.

They should have had standard user accounts at default, and required a sudo type password. They could have also used a sudo type of administrative system to help make it less annoying.


5. Driver model changes created too many device incompatibilities at launch. [/quote]


Absolutely correct. They could have also used virtualization to create the shim. Hopefully Windows Seven will employ VT technology for backwards compatibility so legacy code can be removed from the OS itself.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
As we all are well aware of, Home Basic is a huge disappointment and should be discontinued. I agree that the vast majority just take what comes on the PC, but many are disappointed when the version they have lacks a feature they want.

I'm not really sure. My grandmother, for example, is running Home Basic on her budget $500 laptop, and she has no idea that she is "missing" features. The look and feel of Home Basic is remarkably similar to Aero-enabled SKUs. You would be surprised at the number of people who honestly don't care about Aero, and don't even know it's missing.

Clearly enthusiasts (like Anandtech Forum readers) were NOT intended to purchase Home Basic.

This is what the class action law suit against Microsoft is about. ... having just one version would have saved Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees alone.

Actually, the lawsuit today is due to the fact that the Vista Capable logo wasn't split into a "premium" and "basic" version from the start! At RTM in late 2006, the "capable" logo was split into two system logos, basic and premium, which mapped directly to the Home Basic and Home Premium SKUs, thereby ending any possible confusion about system capabilities.

The lawsuit is about false advertising regarding which features would later work, and not about SKU differentiation. People were under the mistaken impression that the "Vista Capable" logo implied that they would be able to use all of the Windows Vista features if they bought a system a "Vista Capable" logo.

A single Vista SKU wouldn't fix this problem, since these users would still be unable to run Aero and MovieMaker on the single SKU, and would still be mad. Their gripe is about features, not SKUs. In fact, SKU differentiation here was an attempt to alleviate the problem by offering a less expensive SKU for hardware which can't ever utilize the advanced features in the first place.
Basically, Microsoft should never have relaxed its set of published Vista Capable standards in the first place. Then there would have been no possible confusion, and crappy hardware would never have received the "capable" logo at all.

I was under the impression that the search indexer service was under low priority IO because the indexer will slow down while you are using the computer. I have observed this while rebuilding the index manually.

Your observations are correct, but this behavior is not technically "low-priority I/O". As you observed, the Search Indexer will refrain from perform its disk scan or periodic indexing when it senses user activity. However, when it gets notified (using file system notifications) that an object in its scan list has been modified, then it will fire up to scan the modified object again. I call this "on-demand indexing".

Unfortunately this on-demand behavior triggers indexing immediately after object modification, presumably for index consistency purposes (i.e., if you search, you want the results to reflect the latest object contents). So if you have an app that makes LOTS of modifications, you'll get into a situation where the Indexer is running alongside the application, issuing Disk I/O that competes for disk time with the user application! And while the indexer process runs at lower thread priority (so CPU contention isn't really an issue), the I/O packets are unfortunately NOT prioritized, because the Index is stored as a Jet database, and the Jet engine itself was not modified to utilize Vista's prioritized I/O capabilities.
In my opinion, Microsoft really missed a golden performance opportunity here to utilize a key new feature in the kernel (prioritized I/O) to help optimize a key new feature in the shell (Desktop search). This is the kind of thing that makes Architects angry.

The Microsoft has released a test version of Search 4.0 that seems to address some of this bad behavior.

True, I haven't tried this one yet; it just came out yesterday. But indeed, any time you see "performance enhancements" you can always hope for the best.

They should have had standard user accounts at default, and required a sudo type password. They could have also used a sudo type of administrative system to help make it less annoying.

I agree to some extent, although asking home users to remember passwords and enter one into a blank text box -- an activity which seems very basic to us -- is complex and unintuitive to large numbers of home users. (After all, if only one or two people will ever sit down at a home computer, does it really need a password?)

I do agree that they should have gone with a "limited-user as default" implementation rather than "administrator-as-default" with a crippled token. I really don't know of any good reason for this design decision, other than that it might have been easier for them to implement "elevation". It turns out that, although Windows supports "run as", the mechanism by which this feature operates is Fast User Switching, and the process actually runs in an entirely separate user session. Perhaps there were architectural problems with securing this mechanism, or just performance concerns (creating and tearing down user sessions is a heavyweight task).

 

[Pabster]

Take away all the FUD and PEBKAC, and there's no substantive "issues" at all.

 

[Nothinman]

I agree to some extent, although asking home users to remember passwords and enter one into a blank text box -- an activity which seems very basic to us -- is complex and unintuitive to large numbers of home users. (After all, if only one or two people will ever sit down at a home computer, does it really need a password?)

Yea, because OS X users have so many problems with that...

I do agree that they should have gone with a "limited-user as default" implementation rather than "administrator-as-default" with a crippled token. I really don't know of any good reason for this design decision, other than that it might have been easier for them to implement "elevation". It turns out that, although Windows supports "run as", the mechanism by which this feature operates is Fast User Switching, and the process actually runs in an entirely separate user session. Perhaps there were architectural problems with securing this mechanism, or just performance concerns (creating and tearing down user sessions is a heavyweight task).

I'm sure UAC was a lot more complicated to implement because Windows already supports run-as, if I had to guess I'd say they went with UAC because they wanted to avoid the whole "type in a password" thing by default.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Yea, because OS X users have so many problems with that...

Actually, plenty of people do. To use her as an example again, my grandmother can barely type after her stroke; anything that helps her just click is a better user experience. "Admin Approval" mode just makes sense for her.

If you really want to type in your password in Vista rather than just click "continue", you can. Just go to Local Security policy and change the default value "Prompt for consent" to "Prompt for credentials" in the Admin Approval Mode policy. I'm not sure why you'd want to do that when it isn't any more secure (unless you're worried about others sitting down at your console while you're logged in).

Lots of people hate passwords, and forget them frequently. There are lots of UE studies on the subject. You may think it's silly, but many people don't.

I'm sure UAC was a lot more complicated to implement because Windows already supports run-as, if I had to guess I'd say they went with UAC because they wanted to avoid the whole "type in a password" thing by default.

There are more complicated issues behind the scenes. RunAs is implemented with fast-user-switching technology, where a new user session is created behind-the-scenes in order to support the newly launched app. This in and of itself causes some unexpected behavior depending on the app.

IIRC, it was going to be more work for the UAC team to work through all of the app compat issues under that design, believe it or not, than to go with the stripped token approach. Kind of amazing, considering that they basically had to invent the idea of File System and Registry virtualization to maintain app compat under a stripped token, leading to some really confusing behavior on occasion.