Troubled times are here for Microsoft; truly troubled times.

I’m not referring to their first reported decline in quarterly earnings, and I’m not even talking about the repeated extension of the cut-off date for selling XP.

Paul Thurott of the SuperSite for Windows blog says:

we were briefed about a secret Microsoft technology that […] would ship in final form simultaneously with the final version of Windows 7 […] dubbed Windows XP Mode (XPM, formerly Virtual Windows XP or Virtual XP, VXP)….

So Windows 7’s killer new feature is that it runs an older version of Windows.

I get Paul’s point that this truly provides an opportunity for Microsoft to finally start making the sort of aggressive, much needed, and — frankly — long-overdue changes to Window’s central architecture, while delivering (most of) the compatibility requirements its enterprise customers have. I even agree that this is, in fact, a wise choice.

But there’s a reason Microsoft has kept this under embargo until now; it really says something about the state of their flagship product… something it seems they didn’t want to have to say.