By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

    Image: Microsoft Corp.

Image: Apple Inc.

    "I would give a lot to have Steve’s taste."

    Bill Gates said that of Steve Jobs at the D5 conference two years ago, and we knew exactly what he meant.

    Take, for example, the two images above. They are samples of the new desktop images offered by this fall's big operating system updates: Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows 7, scheduled for release in October, and Apple's (AAPL) Snow Leopard, due in September.

    Can you guess which is which?

    Gates may have retired as CEO and Jobs may have spent much of 2009 on medical leave, but the taste gap persists.