VLC plays every video type, is small, portable, and unintrusive. I don't see functional room for improvement.

Oh you know, if only the video playback didn't suck so much.

Media Player Classic: HD XviD without problems
VLC: HD with lots of skipping and garbled frames. And this is a video in my hard drive.

Room for improvement?

Well, using Media Foundation fully and offloading the work to the GPU instead of the CPU by using proper Hardware Acceleration, are just the most important features of a media player, and the ones that VLC doesn't do well (if at all).

It has been six years since Vista, three since 7, and they still base the Windows version of the application on a eleven year old operating system. :(

WMP classic is great, but requires codec packages. VLC has it's hiccups, but provides a TON of built in functionality in a very small package. It may not be perfect, but I think it's an incredible media player depending on what it's needed for. I rarely have any problems at all playing videos in VLC, and when I do, it's usually WMV format. I use both players from time to time.

As far as Microsoft goes with this development path... From what I've read, Win8 sales/devices are so far very disappointing, which to me is not at all unexpected. Everyone I know, including those who work in IT and in software development, were completely uninterested in it. Not looking good for Win8 so far, but things can change. I don't want to see Microsoft fail, as I do like Windows in general and I like the PC platform as it is, but I don't like the new path MS is trying to take with Win8, so I can't say that I'm upset to see them stumbling here.

From what others read, Windows 8 sold 40 million in the first month, where Windows 7 sold 60 million in the first three months. So that indicates that sales are strong.

Until Microsoft fully detail what "sold" means (because there are millions of TechNet / MSDN / Software Assurance / whatever customers (and a few dozen other programs that they have)), we can't say whether sales are good or bad.

EDIT: Similarly to how Google prides themselves with Android 'activations'. I don't think I've ever found info on what exactly an activation means. For all we know, the devices are being activated before leaving the manufacturer's factory to see whether they work (and that's not exactly a sale).

I'm not sure how accurate this is:

http://www.zdnet.com/statcounter-windows-8-license-sales-not-yet-translating-into-usage-7000008148/

According to that article, even though Win 8 may have sold more copies in the first month than Win 7 did, more than three times the amount of users were using Win 7 by the end of the first month than are using Win 8. What this suggests, as the article states, is that most of the 40 million units sold were probably to manufacturers and not to users. Combine that with the fact that Windows 8 devices are selling poorly (http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/The-Windows-8-Sales-Data-Is-In-And-It-s-Horrible-4080412.php) and it looks to me like Win 8 isn't off to a great start.

Things could turn around of course, we'll have to wait and see. All I have to go on is my own personal crowd of friends and what not. So far, ZERO people I know have upgraded or want to upgrade to Windows 8. And, some of my friends work in IT and software development. One of them is the head of IT for a government agency where I live. He said he will not be upgrading their systems (We're talking about hundreds of PC's) to Win 8, which is the same route the companies are taking where my other IT/Software friends work.

Like I said before, I don't want MS to fail. I love computers, and I prefer to keep using the Windows platform over Linux or Apple. But, I do not like the direction MS is taking the platform with Win8, so on that front, I do want them to be less successful. That's just how I feel about it, so to me, this is all welcome news. If things change in the future, I'll adapt one way or the other. I'll either be on board for 8, or I'll switch platforms -- it won't be the end of the world. But for now, I'm sticking with 7, and I'm glad that Win8 isn't doing as well as they'd hoped. And I'm not trying to be a jerk by saying that, so please don't take it personally. If you like Win8, then more power to you -- there's no harm in that.

Also, good point about the Android activations.

Oh, you bastard, you personally offended me! /s

(I'll add "/s", though I think you get the point :p)