[citation][nom]Horhe[/nom]I agree that 16 GB is way too much. There are fully functional Linux distros that can fit on a CD. While reading the title, for a moment I thought that Windows will return to the pre-Vista size. Even to this day I can't understand what and why Windows Vista / 7 features take up so much space compared to Windows XP.[/citation]
Poorer programming practices.
When windows XP was out, CPU's were slow and hard drives were insanely slow. but since hard drives today are faster, they feel that they don't need to focus on getting files to be as small as possible to keep loading times down.
Thats why windows 7 and vista generally feel slower, you click on a menu or open something that is built into the OS and it opens slower because more data has to be read from the hard drive in order to access the same function.
the same thing happens to the UI, since screens have gotten bigger, the designers feel that they don't need to conserve screenspace so you have a new UI that uses nearly 4 times as much vertical screen space (in some cases) as the classic UI, while providing no additional info compared to the classic UI.
If microsoft wanted, they can easily apply the glass effects and other eye candy effects to the windows classic UI, but it wouldn't look different enough to the user basic users who only notice the looks of a OS and nothing else.
Compare the performance of ubuntu to that of windows 7, is many times more responsive, while it wont run your favorite programs, form a standpoint of only looking at the OS, ubuntu is much more responsive, when things are clicked on, things come up instantly, unline windows 7 where there will be a second or 2 of reading from the hard drive, then a 1/4th second delay for the slide or fade animation to finish before you can interact when what you clicked on
While fade or slide effects can be eye candy, they are only useful in cases of keeping the user entertained while something loads, eg certain videogame loading screens may have a small mini game or allow you to control your character
but ideally a user would prefer to just have the content they requested, come up instantly rather than having to engage in any form of waiting.
Eye candy is only cool or interesting the first few times, after that it is just annoying. Imagine if instead of a fade effect for a menu to appear, the OS instead played your "favorite movie" you like the movie but would you like to watch it every time you open a menu?
random visual effects only serve to add delays to things that would otherwise do better without the delay.