Solving the legacy Windows compatibility puzzle

Such an application could respond to shell events (drag and drop, context menu selections), interact with other applications via COM/OLE, and generally preserve the fidelity of a native application -- all without mucking up the file system and Registry hives or otherwise creating the kind of conflicts/security holes that the "clean break" advocates like to squawk about.

It's a best-of-both-worlds scenario, one that would allow Microsoft to isolate troublesome legacy applications (or those from ISVs that still have not abandoned the old model) and actively evolve the native Windows runtime without concern for breaking the legacy application base or saddling users with an imperfect VM-based solution. The company has all the pieces. Let' see if it's smart enough to put them together in time to salvage the Windows platform.