Microsoft’s keeping an eye on the amount of bloat that OEMs will be loading into Windows 7.
We all love to build our own PCs and besides the cost savings, we like the feeling of having a virgin install of an operating system rather than one that’s been “customized” with bloatware. We’ve seen it all before on our laptops, when Windows starts up and the system tray fills with things we never wanted in the first place.
If Microsoft (along with the rest of us) have its way with Windows 7, useless and slow startup programs will be kept at bay from pre-installs.
“We're all about putting the stopwatch on how quickly a customer gets to a usable experience,” said Mark Croft, the director of Microsoft’s OEM worldwide marketing, in a TechRadar story. “With OEM pre-installed software what you'll see is a little bit of streamlining going on in the initial experience for the customer.”
While speed and responsiveness should always near the top of every operating system’s development goals, Microsoft is more sensitive than ever to how quick Windows 7 will feel.
After Windows Vista earned the reputation for being slower than Windows XP, largely due to increased security and other forward-looking features, many became frustrated with their overall computing experience. Users just saw Windows Vista as downgrade to XP rather than an upgrade.
Microsoft now is putting efforts into making Windows 7 much faster, working with OEMs to reduce bloat, and even smaller things such as improving the response of the Start Menu button.
