Sheesh, everyone's making this sooo complicated. There's no
conspiracy.
The number of application programs that Microsoft does NOT provide
is infinite. I have no love for them but it's not a reasonable
complaint.
Copying files over a wire between machines is, was and will be, a
hackish need. I am a Hacker and therefore find this to be the
Right Thing. What, I'm supposed to talk my mother through setting
up XMODEM/Kermit?! No, I said parity off! Let's be real.
The alleged machine that started this thread, a laptop without a
floppy drive and no transfer software, is a corner case. It's not
a valid basis for slagging Microsoft.
(There are already a sufficient number of reasons to hate them,
and believe me, I do.)