Why Vista Failed?

Windows 7 is through beta, it is now release candidate, soon we are going to have a brand new operating system from Microsoft. I have been some what loyal to Microsoft Windows, when i worked on Windows 98 for the first time it was like Wow! I would say Windows 98 really changed the way people think about a personal computer. When Windows Me came in, i decided to stick with Windows 98, reason was i did not find any reason to switch as Windows 98 was doing everything i wanted at that time. When Windows XP, i still kept with Windows 98 until Windows XP Service pack 1 came in.

Now i am using Windows XP Service pack 3, i installed a dual boot with Windows Vista a number of times, but was unable to convince myself to switch. As i have been so used too with Windows XP and i really like it now.
Windows Vista Service pack 1 is a real improvement, but compatibility issue of Windows Vista with its predecessors is one of the reasons most of the users are not switching. Still i have kept Vista on a Virtual machine.

Reasons behind failure of Vista i think:
1. Strong security model, which keeps showing annoying dialog windows, and it is so frequent that users get used to just click OK without bothering for it, because they want to complete a task quickly

2. Hardware requirements, so Windows XP users will have to buy a new hardware if they want to have Windows Aero

3. Performance promises not met, seem to be slow as compare to XP

4. Windows Vista not showing backward computability is biggest reason among all

5. Most of the IT industry have applications developed that run nicely on Windows XP, but same application tends to crash on Vista without a clue

6. Software Vendors are also getting problem in making their programs work on Vista, for this they have to maintain a Virtual machine all the time to test their code on Vista.

7. For gamers that like their old games as well, get a set back when they see the older games are not working well on Vista

I hope Microsoft gets around and fixes them in the up coming Windows 7, i am hopping for the best, otherwise i will keep myself with Windows XP, and let Vista run on a Virtual machine.