Software: Vista? What's that?

Almost 15,000 Windows "partners" (for which read people who do as they are told) from around the world are in Los Angeles for the annual Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). Microsoft says it is "a four-day event that celebrates the accomplishments of the company's 640,000 global partners."

Perhaps. Or it's a shindig and a sales pitch.

What is most obvious is that the Conference is completing the re-writing of history in relation to Vista. It's Windows 7 all the way and that is "the path to Windows 8," according to Steve Ballmer.

There are " more than 200 million PCs running Windows XP, which was launched in 2001," according to Tami Reller, corporate vice president and chief financial officer of Windows and Windows Live. For the "partners" the message was simple: sell, sell, sell. they have a real opportunity to deliver more value to customers in the short term and "set them up for the future," she said.

"Setting up" is right: the message is simple: there are 200 million people using a version of Windows that they didn't want in the first place but were forced into by the policy of retiring even security support for the versions they did like. They refused the rubbish that was Vista but let's get their upgrade dollars now for 7 and then again for 8.

There is no doubt that Windows 7 is the best version of Windows since 3.1, in large part to its blatant copying of so much that Mac and Linux users have got used to. It is also one of the most infuriating with its habit of placing files in different places depending on the version (Home or Pro) for example and its labyrinthine security which even admins have hassle with. And its disinclination to properly register non-MS applications is a serious annoyance. But these are a small price to pay for the first version of Windows since 95 to have a handle on memory and processor usage, to boot before half the morning is over and to have almost the same aversion to the blue screen of death as users.

So why not just perfect it instead of moving to Windows 8?

Simple: that's not the business model. The business model is to create addiction and to force users onto the latest OS drug.

But the truth is that much of what Ballmer and Reller said related to marginal gimmicks.

Like it or not, Windows 7 is, at last, the Windows that users have been promised and have been waiting for, paying through the nose for rubbish for more than a decade. Everything else is glitter.

Having read of the plans for the next year and beyond, it's focused on X box and phones. That's fine. Go and play with the toys.

For Windows, which regardless of the growth of alternative OSs, still drives business, the message to Ballmer is simple, now you've got it right, DFU.