PSA: Mainstream Support for Windows Vista Ends Today
Just five more years of Vista left.
If you're still using Windows Vista on your PC, you might like to know that today is the last day of Mainstream Support for the operating system. Released in 2006 as a follow-on to Microsoft's hugely successful Windows XP, Vista never achieved the blockbuster status of its predecessor. Today, the operating system inched a little closer to obsolescence as Mainstream Support for the software ended.
Now, if you're still running Vista, there's no need to panic. Just because Mainstream Support has ended, that doesn't mean you'll no longer receive support of any kind from Redmond. Mary Jo Foley reports that though today marks the day of free and regular updates, including both security fixes and other patches for Vista, the OS is now into what's called Extended Support. Extended Support offers free security updates while most other updates are available for a fee.
Mainstream support for Windows XP ended in 2009. The OS has been in Extended Support since then and will remain supported until April 2014. Windows Vista users will enjoy Extended Support until April of 2017.

I'm not sure man, Win 8 might leave the same bad taste, unless the entire world moves over to tablets pretty soon.
Vista was a lot better than ME. There was nothing redeeming about ME, but you can see Win 7 is a success, and it's basically Vista with some minor tweaks. The biggest difference was when Win 7 was released the computers that were available at release were good enough for the OS.
Vista was just too much for the average computer, but the hardware caught up by the time Win 7 released.
I do believe Win 8 will suffer at the desktop, while loved on the mobile phone and tablet market. Not that it will suck, but I believe Microsoft releases OS's twice as fast as the public wants them.
I'm not sure man, Win 8 might leave the same bad taste, unless the entire world moves over to tablets pretty soon.
Windows 98SE and XP were good, but I must admit, 7 is great.
Except for no native e-mail client, like Outlook Express and whatever Vista had, Windows Mail?
I ran windows ME for 8 years with absolutely NO problems. I also ran Vista for a solid 3-4 Years and I was running 64-bit starting from the beta age. Sure there were application compatibility issue and hiccups but that IS TO BE EXPECTED when you are adaopting a new OS that is not fully supported. Windows XP was the exact same and I didnt touch that OS until 10 years after it came out and I still hated it.
using windows8 on a touchscreen is fairly fluid, if your goal is a visually appealing interface; personally ill take function over form.
instant search alone has giving back countless hours of my life since vista(i work in IT and am on a PC ~16hours a day.)
There is native mail in Windows 7.
Vista was a lot better than ME. There was nothing redeeming about ME, but you can see Win 7 is a success, and it's basically Vista with some minor tweaks. The biggest difference was when Win 7 was released the computers that were available at release were good enough for the OS.
Vista was just too much for the average computer, but the hardware caught up by the time Win 7 released.
I do believe Win 8 will suffer at the desktop, while loved on the mobile phone and tablet market. Not that it will suck, but I believe Microsoft releases OS's twice as fast as the public wants them.
I use Windows 7 ...
Still use Outlook Express (renamed windows live mail) but is still the same.
And there were quite a few differences between Vista and 7, the little bit I'd dabbled with troubleshooting on vista to see what it was like, I could tell a huge difference when 7 came out.
And Windows ME was a mixed back, either it worked for you or it didn't. It was more or less Win98se with the GDI stripped out to bare minimum. Which was ok, if you did only Windows based programs, or hardware. But, if you used a lot of ISA slot hardware, like say good soundcards of the time, or still played some games that used DOS launchers it was craptastic. Not to mention some printers that used generic dos interface based windows driver, the Okidata inkjet I had at the time, for example.
Vista was released into a bad time for hardware quality. I noticed many systems had faulty motherboards, chips or overall poor design. This resulted in complains by customers to companies that had horrible support, which just added on top of the disatisfaction. So in the end, the computer illiterate customer would somehow blame it on the OS for either being too slow, crashing or just not working because the devices refuse to work.
Vista had other problems aside from this which did attribute to it's failure as a consumer product, but it takes more insults and disregard than it deserves.
The main issue I hate about Vista is Windows Update. Have you ever run it before, especially on a fresh install? It's the most brutal task I've ever seen run on a PC. The last time I ran Windows Update on a fresh Vista install, it took nearly 12 hours on a cable modem connection to download the updates. WU takes FOREVER to scan for new updates. You may as well go take a nap while it determines what it needs.
So what is the native mail client of windows 7?
Windows update hasn't changed in Win 7, there just may be fewer updates now due to age.