There's no need to pretend; that simply isn't the case.
oh come on dont be deluded
several microsoft devs have gone on record stating that the current dev team dont know what half the windows code does.
They darent touch it, because all they know is when they do stuff breaks. as a result its all left in there, and they just add stuff on top of the existing code base
theres probably loads of 16bit code and all sorts in windows that could drastically streamline the whole process.
Im not denying that the PC platform is the leading platform, im just saying they've held it back. Windows ME should never have been released, and XP should never have been released in the state that it was. They just never thought that the floodgates would get openned the way they did to malware/spyware/virus/trojans/buffer overruns etc..
Heck, Intel even proposed a completele overhaul of x86 platform, but microsoft killed it off in the water saying they wouldnt write an OS that supported it, killing it before it even got started.
If microsoft actually ditched the whole windows code base, and started again from scratch, you'd be able to do things with current hardware that would astound you. Simply because we all take it for granted we all need bigger and faster PCs. but some of that is to overcome the bloat that is windows.
I'll grant you XP SP2 systems currently are bug free, and are a perfectly stable evironment. But it should never have taken as long as it did for XP to become that stable.
dont get me wrong, im no mac fan. I dont own a mac, and have a £2k gaming PC and shelled out for legit copy of vista. But im not deluded as to windows flaws.