"What exactly do you mean, Ive found absolutely nothing locked down, purchase the corrrect version for your needs, how is that different to XP Home, XP Pro OEM or Retail!, More choice is Always Better!"
you missed the point that I made.
Windows 7 is not locked down but my question was hypothetical. If Windows 7 did not allow you to run any additional software other than what Can one the retail DVD, would you still want to use Windows 7 as your main operating system?
The purpose of that question was to get readers to understand that the purpose of the operating system Isn't the operating system itself.
While users can get a new computer that comes with Windows 7 and not mind having it installed, but for the average user, there is nothing offered in Windows 7 that will make them want to upgrade.
Suppose you were an average user, who mainly uses their computer to type documents, running browser like firefox or chrome, listen to a little bit of music, and other basic stuff like she never photos with family and friends. With Windows XP, all of this can be done while consuming fewer resources.
For what most people do on their computers, windows XP meets all of their needs, it allows them to run the programs that they want to run, and there are very few programs that require windows 7 to run.
I dualboot both windows 7 and Windows xp. I use windows xp as my main OS since it boots faster, after tweaking, it only uses 40MB of RAM st startup, it is more responsive than windows 7, (eg if I open a menu or folder or setting, it will open much more quickly on windows xp)
For benchmarks that are compatible with both OS, windows xp benchmarks higher (not surprising because it uses fewer resources, leaving more resources for the software you want to run)
In a ideal world, new OS releases would require less resources as time goes by, not more.
Look at many professional programs such as maya, if you were to benchmark maya 8, with maya 2011, on a old single core P4 machine, you will see that maya 2011 renders faster, starts off using fewer resources, then allows for certain parts of it to eat up as much memory as is available, (basically shifting the use of resources so that more is available where it counts such as the render engine)
The only companies that get away with making software slower are ones that make software targeted at consumers who don't know any better.
While the difference in application performance is generally only slightly lower to a point that it is not noticeable in most cases, it is still undesirable to have any slowdown.
Toms hardware needs to do another benchmark rundown, and compare the performance of windows XP, Windows XP x64, Windows vista x86 and x64, and Windows 7 x86 and x64, in order to compare the performance of these OS after 18+ months of updates, has Microsoft made it slower or faster, compared to the last set of benchmarks.
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" You can count pre-installed, how would you like to buy a new car all spiffy looking, and find out it has a 10 year old engine in it! "
to answer your reply: You seem to have missed the point again. Preinstalled should not be counted because the users generally don't have a say in the os that comes with the computer. while some companies may sell a computer where you can customize which operating system comes preinstalled, for a vast majority of computers sold, they generally just come with the latest version of Windows, and you can then choose to replace it if you don't want it.
Just because a lot of computers have windows 7 does not mean that it is wanted by those people, (most computer users don't even know which version their computer is running, and they really just don't care, as long as it runs their favorite programs)
Saying something is better or desirable simply because a lot of people have it, is not a valid argument. A lot of people have the common cold, I guess they must really like it and want it. A lot of people have cancer, nearly 20 million people a year get some form of cancer.
Based on your reasoning, we can conclude that people find having cancer more desirable than playing world of warcraft
But if you take the same info, and get rid of preinstalls or installs that the user has no say in. Compare the number pf people who voluntarily get cancer, and the number of people who voluntarily play world of warcraft, then the the result changes quite significantly. Now more people prefer playing world of warcraft, to having cancer
Most people who get a wow effect from windows 7, do so because of the eye candy and not the function of the OS.
When at the college and I was running ubuntu off of one of my flash drive, and I was testing some of those visual addons because I was bored, a student basically said, wow what OS is that.
Microsoft basically likes wowing novice users with eye candy.
If windows 7 looked exactly like windows xp, but with only the under the hood changes, it would only get negative reactions from users novice users because not only will it look the same but it will be noticeably slower
For the true demand or popularity of an OS to be considered, one must compare how many retail (non preinstalled) copies are in use, that way you are only getting the value of how many users voluntarily chose to use the operating system.
I run both and have both tweaked to be as fast as possible. I have a pretty decent gaming PC, while windows 7 benchmarks slightly lower, it is not enough for me to tell any difference between games on windows 7 and windows XP, the difference in application performance between windows 7 and windows xp just too small to tell the difference.
But when you dual boot both os and frequently use both, you will notice little things like a menu that will come up instantly in windows xp, will now have a noticeable delay in windows 7 because it needs to load more data from the hard drive to give you the same menu.
With a SSD, windows xp boots significantly faster than windows 7, but in normal desktop use, you cant tell a difference in responsiveness between windows XP and windows 7 , (I have tried and could not tell a difference, but with my 1TB 7200RPM WD black, I can tell the difference in responsiveness)
I would have kept the ssd but 64GB is not enough space and I really want to wait until they come down in price and increase the write cycles and ultimately get rid of the need for something like trim.
While trim helps maintain the speed, there is still a slowdown, I want a ssd that will behave like a hard drive in when I overwrite data, it should be just as fast as when I am writing to a blank sector.