If you look from Vista's perspective, perhaps everything is 'enhanced'.
From XP's point of view there's little enhanced about windows 7.
XP has a smaller footprint, will be (just like Windows 98se today)hacked, and attacked less, and still has a faster response time.

And my notebook battery with Norton 360 installed lasts longer on XP, than a clean installation of windows 7!

I certainly hope Windows 7 allows going back to the grey 2000/Me/9X/NT look! It saves speed, and resources!

I don't get it! I have the feeling that MS is trying to bit Linux in number of distributions!

ps. Please accept my apology. I just could not hold it any more.

Can you disable services?

In XP for example... just disable "themes" in services. I am sure Win7 will allow this as well.

I don't get it, haven't they learned anything? Just release 1 OS at a decent price and have it customizable at install or OEM can do a base for the hardware they are installing it on. Micro you are right you have an opportunity here and you are going to blow it.

Basically fits my view of all these companies. They want money each and every time you touch, see, hear, smell or taste a digital product. Look at Bill Gates' previous talking points of where he wanted to take Microsoft. The end game for Microsoft was/is it to be a rented OS. You buy nothing when you get the product, you just get a rental contract. Pay by the minute, hour, day, week, month, year. The endgame is basically, if you want to use your computer, we have the key, and we will allow you to use it, for a fee.

Same goes for movie, music and game industry, they are all going towards the pay per play. Buy a CD and they claim you do not own anything, if you want it on your iPod pay iTunes, want it on your computer, pay someone else, want it on some other mp3 player, another fee, in your car, pay a fee, their end goal is to charge you every time you hear more than ten consecutive seconds of anything remotely similar to something they can claim copyright to. These companies are nothing better than a buch of socialist parasites when it comes to how they see their products, as a way to enslave people to their company products. The time when you could simply buy something, and not have to worry about it is coming to an end.

All you younger kids with your anti piracy rants can rant on all you want, but when you let these companies lock you into pay per play for every single small thing in your life, your life will be very much a rat race of trying to keep up on all those nickles and dimes($1, $14.99, $29.99). They may seem like small numbers, but as the companies multiply the number of pay per play items in your supposedly can't live without catagories, your future incomes are going to start looking very small compared to your parent's income of years past. Of course, I guess you could just as well join them, and maybe make money.

I'll pass. When I see the need to move to a new OS, it will be open source. Wake up and smell the roses Microsoft.

WOW! a lot of angry people here shit!

So, What version of windows will i be getting again? I mean all these versions are so very very confusing. I upgraded OSX Tiger to Leopard and had no problem because there was 1 version, and that version contained all the updates with nothing left out.

What should i do for windows? do i buy the basic, get the premium do the ultimate or settle for the Starter Edition? Wow it's no wonder people switch to Linux. Locking out features? never heard of such a pyramid strategy. and here the piracy rate of windows is through the roof!

Do we own operating systems or do we lease or rent them? Apparently when it comes to software, we don't own anything

u shouldnt buy any windows at all!

ms r playing their cards right tho, becoz most ppl want windows on their netbooks. personally i prefer a linux distro becoz, but for ur average person, they expect to have windows. it's good to c ms' marketshare go down but it's still ridiculously high

Microsoft is dead, long live Linux, OSX, BSD, Haiku, ...

Does M$ really want everyone to pirate?

You people are all crazy. I actually love Vista Basic SP2 and think Windows 7 is completely awesome. It fixed all my gripes with Vista (note: I'll always hve a few gripes, nothing is perfect).

You bashers can go play on Linux, I'll get some actual work and gaming done on Windows thank you very much. I think MS is a pretty good company, I'm proud they are an American company.

I see lots of people talking about windows vista and 7 are not suitable to use on netbooks. well, i think this people didn't even tried to install the system. i have a msi wind running windows vista ultimate and its running pretty fast. some apps that are extreme hardware dependent (like winrar or games) run better in xp than in vista, but the system itself (opening windows/programs, switching programs) is much more faster in vista than in xp in my wind.
in windows xp i used the 98 theme, when in vista i use the full aero theme.
there is a thread in the msi wind forums with other users saying the same thing.
http://forums.msiwind.net/windows/ [...] t3898.html
i would really apreciate if tomshardware do a test with the two system in msi wind u100 or a similar netbook. forgive my poor english, i'm from brazil

WOW Let me know when linux has even 10% of the desktop share and you may have a chance. What alot of you 1337 DUD3'5 dont get is that while there are different versions of windows THEY ALL RUN THE SAME SOFTWARE. office 97 Still works on vista. My 3d software works on everything from 98 to W7. It just works. My grandmother and parents can call with a question and I can rattle the answear off without pause. Walmart tried to sell linux based machines and it was a disaster. People think it was because the lindows windows link. BAAA wallmart could have done what they wanted but the sales were just sad.
AS far as OSX PLEASE. Your drinking the coolaid if you think for one sec that Apple is somesort of white knight. In many ways Apple is MORE evil then M$.

Wait, wait, I love vista and look forward to Windows 7. I plan on purchasing Premium or Ultimate when the time comes; but what does this mean by 3-program max?
That's a bit odd to say the least, if it literally implies I can only run three programs with GUI's simultaneously (I must be mistaken). Any way I look at this, it's somewhat disheartening.

*Note*
Totally agree with everything m3kt3k said. I have a place for Linux in my Heart, but don't take your feeling of supremacy being a Linux user out on M$; they have different places in the tech world.

@ 2gooDrumr

the 3 programs max restriction are only found on the Windows 7 starter edition, since you're going for either Premium or Ultimate, this is not a problem.

I use Linux and all versions of Windows. I hate and love them all equally.
Any and all OS' likes to be a serious pain in the ass to get right,but once you get it to do what you want it should be alright(example : Vista and Ubuntu)

I didn't say anything bad about windows as an OS. I just dislike the fact that they bundle everything together and then only unlock what you pay for. That is crap. I'd like a stripped down version that has all of the necessities and nothing extra. They're always dropping simple, but useful features from the lower end versions (notably networking options), but including all of the fancy frivolous crap (WMP, etc) in all of the versions.

AGREE!!!!!!!



AGREE!!!!!!!

I'm getting tired of the MicroSHAFT, they are nickle and dimming everyone and over price their bloated, buggy, and boring OS.

Now that I've made my order for the FragFX v2 on the PS3...ummm, tell me why again I need windblows?

I was a supporter of theirs for a long time, but I've about had it with their greed and buggy products. In these financial times we are in...they seem as out of touch with the consumer as ever.

They want me back? Buy back crappy Vista and I'll "consider" buying windows 7, if not...Unbuntu here I come (I'm already playing with it and it gets the job done).

So, now the OS that comes with the computer is truly crippleware. Three programs at a time? I might as well install a pirate copy of DOS on my netbook.

Windows 7 is great. What you people don't like choice? Can't handle multiple options on what to buy? Choice...why is that bad?

Linux is a great OS for people who like Linux. Windows is a good OS for people who actually wanna get their s**t done.

I would've suggested that rather than impose limits such as 3 simultaneous apps, they should completely remove "enhancements" such as indexing, DRM (for Blu-ray playback, etc.), Windows Desktop Search, etc. But then again, if that was the case, no doubt a lot of people would stick to starter edition

I hope that Windows 7 is great. And Yes I am all about the choice. But here is my problem with the choice that MS is offering:
1. You want useful feature A, but in order to get it you need to buy "crap #1" plus "crap #2"
2. You need feature B, but you are forced to buy even more crap software.

This is how the cable companies empty your pocket every month, but more and more people are canceling the cable. MS here is betting on wrong business model. Their problem is that Apple is doing bundling better and the people witch don't want to choose are switching to Mac OS X. On the other hand people that really like choice have alternative in other OSes including free Linux.


This is very argumentative, but if you feel comfortable working with Windows good luck. Only please do not speak of other people. For example NYSE is all about business and they run Linux.

Totally agree with SAL-e.
First of all, it's not about freedom of choice, it's about Microsoft selling intentionally and artificially crippled software in order to make you buy the same thing twice (or even more times). It's not like you are buying a cellphone. It's a computer and even netbooks are more powerful than the ones around at the time of the XP launch and they want to give you a worse OS to use with it. Because in my view, a crappy, outdated and difficult to use OS interface is not an option anymore. And 3 softwares at a time? Does that count the antivirus? So you can't even have an email, browser and instant message application runing at the same time? Who would like to use an OS that doesn't allow you to do even that????

In conclusion, they should just release a home and a business versions with the option to install just the OS and any combination of the bunddle available so anyone who has a less powerful PC can have a faster boot and more free space without having a lesser OS.

Lol, the string of stupid comments in this thread is astounding. Every OS has it's place, and Windows most of all. It's not going anywhere. It's clear this thread was taken over my MS haters and Moron trolls alike, so I wont even bother posting any type of aurguments. Besides, I'm more than confident that my views on technology are 100% correct anyways, and I couldnt agree less with half these posts.

Get real guys.
Hating on MS stopped being a cool fad the minute it started, and now just lets serious people know who the idiots are.

Whats up with all these angry people...
If you don't like what Microsoft has to offer, just dont buy or use it. Plain and simple. Go run linux!
I like all three versions of microsoft and have them installed (XP,Vista,7) so I think its worth it. Same with linux, that also pwns. The updated version of Windows 7 RC 1 should have the option to disable many features such as indexing and IE8 after install. And for the people that use vista and complain how it is such a memory hog, you do know that it is possible to disable aero and even make it look like windows 98... 4GB ram for 44 bucks anyone? www.newegg.com

whatever you guys say may be right or wrong, but there's one reason why windows 7 will work.. compatibility and oems.. almost every single program in existence is created to work with windows, and then they mac os/linux compatibility is considered.. and don't forget gaming.. plus, buying a laptop or pc from companies like hp, acer, sony, whatever.. you can bet your life that it'll have windows, and the latest one at that..

so no matter what we the people say, we have no choice but to eat out of microsoft's hands.. until apple considers allowing its os to be bought off shelves and installed on any pc that is (putting aside software compatibility issues)

i don`t get it why linux fans come here to throw shit ? it`s an article about windows not linux so go back to your linux and make yourself a handjob because you feel good you`re not useing "M$" products. Vista SP1 x64 works wonderfoul on my machine and i see other people screaming blaaah i get blue screen even on instalation, have you ever thought is not the OS and its your PC the problem ? about the guys who say visual bling of the OS takes up resources ... well i feel sorry for you if you can`t afford more tha 1 GB ram on your PCs after all technology has advanced from the era of 2 MB computers and 40 MB HDD

Are they going to make Windows 7 Millenium Edition here or what? Three programs at once is a joke. Most end users have more than three programs running w/out a windows open (AV, IM, VPN, Anti-spyware, etc.) already when their machines boot up. Selling something this crippled will only make people angry and M$ can only lose face from it. I thought WinXP Home with it's admin and networking limitations was a foul joke. Won't touch Vista, and if I had too it wouldn't be less than Vista Ultimate.

This Apple's OS model is probably the best available right now. One OS that if frequently updated and appears to become better over time. MS makes a real OS, then sells various crippled versions of it for less. They should at best be selling three versions of the OS, mobile, home, professional. Why make it more confusing and more limiting for your customers?

Second point off topic - remember the whole 'Vista Capable' debacle? Guess what - most of those low-end machines with the Intel IGP's weren't shipping with a version of Vista that had Aero anyways, so it really didn't make a big difference. MS should innovate and release new products, but they definitely need to trim the fat and provide a more coherent product line.