Not that I am, either, any more. (But since I see you're spouting the same old xenophobic bullshit all over again, chances are I'll become angry again.)

As for Visual Studio, haventthefuckingfaintest -- as I said, I only see (a depressing amount of) it boxed in stores. But I'd think not: W2K (and WXP, by and large, as I understand it) is binary-compatible with NT4; most .EXE-only apps you bought off-the-shelf three years ago work on both. And since your "good ol'" VS6 presumably emits NT4-compatible object code, that code oughta run as-is on W2K (and most probably WXP) too.

How dot-nyet "is playing"? Well, to its intended audience -- "management-by-glossy-flight-magazine-article" PHBs, Billy-boy-fanboy zombie Randroids, and above all the computer-illiterate general public -- it's "playing" pretty well, I suspect (and fear). Remember, this *is* primarily a MARKETING "play".

But to those of us in the know? Idunno; I'd guess perhaps the most common reaction is "Been here, seen that, got the scars" -- like, hey, this is just a re-hash of the JVM byte-code concept (and to a lesser extent, in "C#", of the Java language, only now crossed with Delphi's Object Pascal and with a superficial smear of even more C/C++-ness in the syntax). Whoo-hoo, Microsoft trying to "embrace and extend" someone else's technology? "Film at eleven!", like...

Fuck, even Dave W(h)iner seems to have bought himself a clue, lately, in stead of just continuing to buy everything Billy's PR flaks spew out.