Hi faust,

Seasonal greetings, and I hope you and yours are all well

I am afraid that I dropped off the radar for a while due to family circumstances. In February last, my wife was told that she had six months left, and we buried her on the 18th. October.

Windows 7 is fine. Its just that they should have fired all those former gnome developers the moment XP rolled out with a round start button.
Aaron will just love Windows 8 then............there isn't a "start button"

@Aaron:

Software wise, it should be stripped of everything on every edition. I wouldn't have to uninstall what I don't want
Try the Windows 7 "starter edition", I have it on a netbook, and it seems to be pretty much what you are suggesting. Otherwise you have to go *nix and add whatever you want. Whichever; you end up having to either add or delete according to your taste.

I think that I see where you are coming from though. Quite a lot of software gives you the choice of a standard or an expert installation mode? It shouldn't be that difficult for Microsoft to do the same should it?

What I am thinking of is the option to do a barebones installation and select what else you want added during or after the installation process.

Unfortunately, Microsoft seem to be concentrating on a "one size fits all" Windows 8 solution that is hardware platform focused; rather than looking at the actual OS content itself.

They also still have the "operating system for dummies" mindset.