alt Hacker News> When Windows ME and Windows Vista came out, people hated them even more than they usually hated Windows, so they did not use them. Microsoft was forced to respond by making a not-quite-as-bad OS in Windows XP
This timeline doesn't seem to make sense, as Windows XP came out in 2001, and Windows Vista in 2006-2007. Maybe you are referring to Service Pack 3 in 2008?
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Your quote is missing the end, required for it to make sense (irrelevant parts omitted):
> When Windows ME and Windows Vista came out [...]. Microsoft was forced to respond by making [...] Windows XP and [...] Windows 7 respectively.
It's basically from ME and Vista to XP and 7, respectively. AFAIK respectively in this context means that for ME, they were forced to respond with XP, and for Vista, they were forced to respond with 7.
Indeed it makes no sense at all, because Windows 2000 even came out before Windows ME.
Reactions to Windows ME forced MS to respond with XP; reactions to Vista forced them to respond with 7. They're being stated in parallel rather than chronologically.