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Windows 7 Clean Install Only In Europe
jbeale53 writes "It seems that to install Windows 7 in Europe, you'll have to wipe the system and start over. There will be no ability to upgrade. From the article, 'The unfortunate side effect has been caused by Microsoft's decision to avoid any further EU censure on Windows 7 by removing Internet Explorer 8 from the OS. Because Internet Explorer is so deeply integrated within Vista, it's not currently possible to perform an upgrade that removes IE.' Why would Microsoft cripple it this way? Just to try and point fingers at the European Union? Because the EU didn't tell them to remove IE, they only told them to offer other browsers to be installed during setup."
A fresh install of XP on modern equipment is almost as snappy as Linux.
Good post, up until that point. Savvy users of both Linux and XP know that tweeked XP is much snappier and far more convenient than tweeked Linux if both run the same features and don't do anything stupid. That part of your post smacks of an unfair comparison of a naive virus-running XP porn addict and a savvy Linux tweeker who boots to the console.
XP still trumps Linux on a desktop where people want shit to just work.
You're probably an astroturfer so I'm not wasting a lot of time here. Please learn what antitrust abuse is before coming here and telling us why it should be legal. With a few minutes of reading on the topic you can understand why what MS is doing is a crime and what Apple/RedHat are doing is not. If you don't take the time to educate yourself and haven't read one of the hundreds of posts explaining this in other articles, why should we bother with you?
But the thing is... why is Microsoft a Monopoly and Apple isn't?
The way it looks to me is that Apple holds WAY more control over their OS and other such products, while Microsoft tends to be much more open about letting developers actually..... develop..... and manufacturers actually..... manufacture.
If you ask me, Apple is a monopoly, and Microsoft is not. And I have yet to find an explanation as to why nobody sees it that way.
Have a spare couple of grand for each of us for the oh-so-glamourous style hardware? Thought not :P
If you keep the systems free of spyware, viruses, and lock them down enough so users don't mess with them too much (i.e., they're set up as a work machine, and used only for work), Windows is as easy to keep "clean" as any other OS.
What? If you keep Windows clean, it's easy to keep clean? Logic fail.
In the real world, cleaning Windows machines is often a large percentage of the maintenance time spent on them. Sure, if you lock them down to where you can only run one or two applications you'll less likely to be owned. Not entirely unlikely, just less likely.
Or, you know, you could run an operating system for which there are no credible viruses...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"