Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.

"Oh wow," said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.

I think anyone willing to take a run at Vista with eyes open, doors to perception off their hinges, and other mystical hippie crap, will actually find that it's a fantastic OS. This just bolsters my point.

I don't know how much it would cost Microsoft to roll out an actual "Mojave" (pronounced moe-JAV-eh) with, like, a slicker, prettier, transparentier UI, maybe with a little virtual desktop love... basically pitching anything that's bubbly or a throwback to XP, and then slapping it onto Vista Home Premium, (of course, making it a free update for all the existing buyers) but it certainly would cement the OS in the lead.

Because the only real flaw was that Vista didn't change enough.