If Bill is reading this: Another way to commit to quality would be (a) fund a $200M+ open source foundation to migrate/port/rewrite all of Windows (drivers, utilities, applications) to Linux; (b) give the foundation full IP rights to do so; (c) put all Microsoft Windows employees on the effort too.
Bill definitely wouldn't approve of the current Windows quality. This email by him (2003) is very interesting. It looks like he was powerless to stop the degradation.
Definitely a wild read. Bill has a certain style of writing; here is my favorite part:
> So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is
> this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
>
> So they told me that using the download page to
> download something was not something they anticipated.
>
> They told me to go to the main page search button
> and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
>
> I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after
> 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
>
> I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go
> do the download.
>
> In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to
> solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a
> bunch of incantations.
The guy's still a narcissistic asshole and likely sexual predator, but when even Bill Gates says the UI sucks on Microsoft products, you know the rot runs deep.
The fix is upside down UI?