You can paint over it, but it's still crap

The "please ignore the man behind the curtain" act is starting at Microsoft again, this time to make us forget they ever did Vista:

Day two of Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference kicked off with the first public demonstration of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista.
It's a key unveiling for Microsoft, not just because the company is quickly seeking to move on beyond the problems it encountered with Vista. To Ray Ozzie, chief software architect for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Windows 7 marks a part of its overall effort to better deliver what he described as one complete offering.
"If you take one thing away from what you see here today at PDC, it is that we can do our customers a great service by focusing how much we can give them for a combined value of their investments," Ozzie said. "Our objective to make the combination of PC, phone and the Web of more value than the sum of their parts."

As opposed, say, to focusing on how Microsoft fucked up their lives and their computers for a couple of years with crappy software...

Rico says but, wait, there's more:

Julie Larson-Green, vice president of Windows Experience, gave Windows 7's first public demonstration, focusing heavily on its touchscreen elements, such as how older applications can be touch-enabled without rewriting them. Larson-Green also demonstrated Windows 7 support for connecting to a multitude of devices, including a Windows Mobile phone. Though a service called Device Stage, all devices on a network -- including desktop PCs, laptops, printers, attached storage and Windows Mobile phones -- can be viewed and accessed as readily as a hard disk partition on the computer. Developers can embed their own links into the Device Stage screen that appears when accessing their specific device. As a result, a user can easily visit the driver download page for their printer, for instance.
In addition to new touch functionality and Device Stage, Larson-Green also demonstrated another nifty user-interface element that combines Quick Launch buttons and Taskbar icons. Moving the mouse over a Word icon shows thumbnails with all of the application's open documents, making it possible to jump to an open Word file with a single click.
Yet another change: The sidebar from Windows Vista that occupied the right side of the screen is gone. Under Windows 7, it's possible to place widgets anywhere on the desktop

Rico says gee, now it looks and acts just like (dare he say it) a Macintosh...