More about Microsoft and backward compatibility is here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

There's a blog run by Raymond Chen, one of the engineers on the backwards compat team, which is about backwards compat and other arcane aspects of Windows:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/

The part about millions of people sending millions of checks to companies really hit me. Why are Americans still using checks? I haven't seen one in more than a decade.

Bank transfers basically aren't supported by anyone you'd like to give a large sum of money to, so you have to write them a check.