The most striking thing about Microsoft’s Windows 10 announcement was how much of it was a reaction to the problems of Windows 8. I wouldn’t quite call it a do-over, but it comes pretty close.

All of the user-facing features Microsoft mentioned in its press release respond to complaints about Windows 8: The Start menu is back, all apps can run in windows, a “snap” feature makes it easier to work with multiple apps at the same time, and users can create multiple desktops for different purposes (so we’ve gone from no desktop on the main screen in Windows 8 to as many as you want in Windows 10).

It’s easy to forget what a revolutionary change Windows 8 was supposed to be.

On the enterprise side, the pitch for Windows 10 is basically a response to the failed upgrade cycle to Windows 8. Companies are promised advanced security, the ability to install the new OS without wiping old computers, better management of licensed apps, and a partnership in which companies can try out Windows 10 before release and give feedback on it. (How that differs from the Preview programs for previous Windows releases is not clear; maybe the difference this time is how much Microsoft will listen to the feedback it gets.)

It’s easy to forget what a revolutionary change Windows 8 was supposed to be when Microsoft first talked about it almost three and a half years ago. At that time, tablet computers seemed to be on the verge of taking over all personal computing, and Microsoft responded by making Windows 8 a tablet-first operating system that de-emphasized personal productivity in order to drive adoption of the tablet user interface. Microsoft was very explicit about this. Here’s a blog post from 2012 by Jensen Harris, one of the Windows 8 product managers (last week, he announced plans to leave Microsoft to cofound a startup):

People, not files, are the center of activity. There has been a marked change in the kinds of activities people spend time doing on the PC. In balance to ‘traditional’ PC activities such as writing and creating, people are increasingly reading and socializing, keeping up with people and their pictures and their thoughts, and communicating with them in short-frequent bursts.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, those social activities didn’t migrate to Windows-powered tablets. Instead, they have been increasingly absorbed by the smartphone. So Windows 8 was optimized for tasks that people don’t do as much on computers any more, while it made more difficult the “traditional” activities that people actually buy PCs to perform.