Admitting the problem is the first step

Microsoft did fess up that there'd been a few teensy problems with Vista:

It was when Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Windows and Windows Live, got around to dealing with the issues that had plagued Vista that the audience become more enthusiastic. It was the admission of problems in Vista, and what they were doing to fix them, that worked up the crowd. "We got feedback on Vista from bloggers, the press, and, oh, some commercials," Sinofsky said, to laughter.
For starters, he addressed the annoying User Access Control security system, which asked people if they really wanted to perform a certain action even for the most basic of functions. In adding UAC to Vista, Sinofsky said Microsoft had meant well, but "we possibly went too far."
In Windows 7, users can specify the intrusiveness of notifications and confirmations Windows uses to alert the user to system changes. They can now control how much notification they desire using a slide bar, which enables them to choose from "Never notify me", "Only notify me when programs try to make changes", "Always notify", and "Notify and wait for my approval." UAC had offered only an all-or-nothing choice. The change drew a fair amount of applause.
Sinofsky also addressed Vista's problems with drivers, many of which were not available until some time after the operating system had shipped. Because Windows 7 uses the same device driver model as Vista, which now has been on the market nearly two years, he did not see there being a similar snag when Windows 7 hits the market. Now, he said, the third-party market is fully involved in writing compatible drivers. "With Vista, we really weren't ready at launch with the device coverage we need," he said.
Another change that drew audience applause was being able to natively create and mount a virtual hard drive in Windows 7, a feature demonstrated on-stage. These drives can be either dynamic or fixed in size.
Sinofsky also teased a much smaller footprint for Windows 7. He showed off a netbook with 1GB of memory and said that after it booted Windows, the tiny, low-powered notebook PC still had more than half of its memory left over.
Concerns over memory had proved to be another thorn in the side of Vista, with the older Windows XP finding new life not only among customers who didn't want Vista, but also as the OS of choice for less-powerful computers like netbooks.

Rico says he's still not rushing out to buy a Gates POS...