'the crud'
the crud, in my entirely honest opinion is almost everything they've layered on since Windows 2000.
I know the Linux hardcore will laugh but Windows used to be a good solid OS that put you in the driving seat and quietly keep out of your way letting you get on with things.
From the point Windows 2000 was released Microsoft had two choices for future direction, either layer it up with novelty gimmicks, or start adding even more complex and powerful features for the more hardcore OS users to take advantage of while maintaining a solid platform for everybody else.
They went with the novelty option, killed off the 9x line, made XP a general consumer OS and started integrating all the crud that would have otherwise found it's way into the gimmicky consumer OS line into the serious NT based one. What they're doing by combining Windows with the modern phone interface is actually similar, another layer of gimmicky garbage from another thread of Windows being forced on people who just want the serious one.
As a direct result of all this Windows 8 is simply the point where that pile of crud has fallen over, people have started waking up and saying 'what the hell is this?'
Maybe from a business point of view it made sense, leave the hardcore minority to Linux, sell the OS with pretty features and gimmicks, drive up the profits by showing attractive screenshots and hyping up half-assed functionality that could already be handled better with 3rd party software. It did work at first, it kept the profits rolling in year on year but you can only keep that up while ignoring the serious side of the OS for so long.
I don't envy whoever the new CEO is, (s)he is going to have a huge mess to clear up. Years of neglect of the core operating system features, years of leaving a bad taste in the mouths of users through over-promising and under-delivering and forcing user-hostile changes like the ribbon (retrain everybody!), windows activation (refusing to trust your customers) and most recently the whole half-180 start button/menu (still won't give people what they've asked for), catastrophic Surface sales and an XBox 1 showing that had even the common rabble with their pitchforks out.
It's going to take years to undo that damage and unless Shareholders are actually willing to see profits slide while Microsoft tone down the 'what we want at all costs' approach and reinvent themselves as a good company with the customer at heart again then nothing will change with or without Ballmer. The share surge is optimistic.
T
Biting the hand that feeds IT
