None of that, however, alters one bit the sheer damage done to their rep by the media. The Vista issues were ridiculously overblown by the media, causing damage so bad that MS were forced to dump it and launch Windows 7, even though there is very little actual difference between it and Vista SP1. What we have in 7 would have been another Vista service pack if the name itself hadn't been irreparably damaged.
Essentially the same is happening to Windows 8, too. It has a few problems sure, but those are once again being ridiculously overblown by the media, forcing MS to abandon it and move to 9, even though once again the differences are minimal. So much so that the rumours are 9 will be either a free or very low cost upgrade to 8.
Its debateable whether the differences are minimal, but what is provably true is that the media is following sentiment, not driving it. To the extent the media is emphasizing the problems with Windows 8 (and emphasized with Vista) they are echoing general sentiment, not creating it. Media support for Windows 8 ran 10:1 in favor of it at launch, and that shifted over time to the point of overwhelmingly acknowledging the problems with it only when the number of people voicing those concerns only increased over time.
If the media simply didn't cover Windows at all, neither for nor against, Microsoft would still be facing an extremely large backlash against Windows 8. The only difference is that only Microsoft would be sure just how large it was.
Its true that ultimately Microsoft could have addressed the issues in Vista with continued service packs and primarily introduced Windows 7 to repair the damage to the Windows brand done by Vista. But that was a purely self-inflicted wound: Vista's security model was itself a reactionary response to Microsoft's belief that the Windows brand was being tarnished by the increased visibility of security issues associated with Windows. They attempted to address those with no deference to useability. That's always a self-inflicted wound, and they always deserve whatever backlash they get when they do that (as does every other company that makes that error).
How damaging a problem is isn't measured by how difficult it is to fix. Problems can be extremely damaging and yet resolvable by patches that intrinsically don't do much. No one is forcing Microsoft to call Windows 8.2 Windows 9; that's their call. What people want is those problems fixed. That they don't take much effort to fix makes the problems all the more galling, not retrospectively trivial. That Microsoft can dodge the negativity caused by their own design errors by simply changing the name of the product is a situation I consider a plus to Microsoft, not a minus. You can't argue Microsoft is being forced to abandon Windows 8 and yet releasing a successor product that is basically just like it. That means Microsoft isn't being forced to abandon Windows 8, they are trying to convince people Windows 8.2 shouldn't be judged based on the user experience of Windows 8, but starting with a clean slate by calling it Windows 9. To the extent that's false, that's false in Microsoft's favor. Nobody's forcing them to do that.
If people are going to vilify Microsoft for something, do it for the bad things they've deliberately done, rather than the mistakes they've made.
They originally doubled down on their "mistake" to make the metro interface mandatory and default. They only backed down when they began to realize that the backlash against that decision wasn't as a lot of people characterized it just media driven. If it was media driven, it would have gone away within a year. It was getting worse over time, and costing them a ton of OS sales and deployments. It was snowballing on them in a lot of ways the media didn't cover a lot, specifically in their channel. Microsoft is actually pretty good about defending their channel, and particularly their stronger MSPs. Windows 8 was flat-out damaging them, and that made the situation untenable.
If Microsoft had said "oops our bad, we'll make Metro optional" when it became clear that was a design error, nobody would be talking about this now. Its been two years and only recently has Microsoft come even close to admitting that was a mistake (technically, Microsoft has never admitted that officially; only the known features of Windows 9 make that case).
In any event, to the extent that media coverage compelled Microsoft to act sooner rather than later, I say its a pretty good use for tech media, which rarely has all that much of an impact generally.
