Vista not being rewritten

Robert Scoble (who works for Microsoft) rather forcefully refutes the allegation that 60% of the code for Windows Vista was being hurriedly rewritten in these two posts:

Whenever you see a story that says 60% of any OS is gonna be rewritten you should demand that the journalist who wrote that be immediately and publicly fired. Totally 100% incompetent. Did NOT do their homework.

There is NO WAY a major OS can be rewritten without breaking everything and certainly not in a short time frame. Such a rewrite would take a decade to make work right and I doubt it would even after that.

He goes on to say:

A journalist and an editor needs to be fired.

In fact, two journalists and editors need to be fired since the story is now being rewritten without any brains being engaged.

Whilst Scoble is obviously biased, I can see his point that it would be completely implausable for Vista to be rewritten to that extent by January 2007. The story is made more unlikely by the widely known fact that Vista has already been rewritten to a large extent, after the lead developer burst into Bill Gate's office one day to tell him that it simply wasn't going to work. I think this type of story was inevitable after Microsoft delayed Vista, and that it is a symptom of the widespread irritation and disappointment.