Valid criticism, granted -- not EVERY version. Okay, here's my personal (not counting work) history of migration with Windows, with the versions I didn't migrate to marked with an 'X':
X Windows 1.x (never used it myself)
Windows 2.x (I forget, might have been 2.1)
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.11WfW (very different from 3.0)
Windows NT 3.1 (first NT release)
Windows NT 3.5 (first stable NT release)
Windows 4.0 (Win95)
Windows 4.1 (Win98)
Windows 4.9 (WinME)
X Windows NT 4 (only used at work)
Windows NT 5 (Win2000 Workstation)
X Windows NT 5 (Win2000 Server) (only at work)
Windows NT 5.1 (WinXP)
X Windows NT 5.? (Win2003 Server) (only at work)
Windows NT 6.0 (WinVista)
X Windows NT 6.? (Win2008 Server) (only at work)
Windows NT 6.1 (Win7)
That's ummm, a clean dozen, if you count Win7 (which I'm experimenting with -- my main machines still run 2000, XP, and Vista). Without Win7, call it 11.
Of course these migrations often included upgrades or replacements of hardware platforms. But I guarantee you I've used and migrated my personal data and programs to/from every one of those above without an 'X', except Win7.
I don't think I'm going off-point. I think you're trying to salvage your original statement, which might apply to a lot of relative newbies, but for us old-timers, no. That's all.
As a peace offering I'll say this: Any Windows user in the past 8 years has only had to deal with one version -- WinXP -- which is arguably the most successful operating system of all time, and one which I personally have come to like and depend on. The only "migrations" within XP's history are the service packs, and even SP2 wasn't -that- bad in my experience.
Compared to that longevity, the Linux distros are chaos. ;-)
Thank you for being a such a good, loyal Microsoft customer for all these years.
I hope you’re also using Office 2007.
Are you in need of any Microsoft chochkas? T-shirts?