Windows 7 Home: Your very own crippled OS!

With Windows 7 RTM hitting official Microsoft channels, I figured I’d load up the final version of Windows 7 and check it out.  I’ve commented in the past about being completely unimpressed with 7 and for the most part, that is holding true, with some added hatred for the big-wigs over at Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding what I should be allowed to run on MY machine.

I upgraded from Vista Home Premium to 7 Home Premium.  The upgrade process itslef took around 3 hours, but it did go off with out a hitch.  I was happy for the most part, until I went to fire up one of my virtual machines in Virtual PC 2007.

This is when my joy turned to pure black hatred for 7 and all it represents.  It is a step backwards in technology.  It is Big Brother watching over your every single move tell you what you can an can not do.

I was presented with a message that basically told me I was not allowed to run this program on the version of Windows I was using.  I should’ve grabbed a screen shot but my rage levels were through the roof and I wasn’t thinking ahead.  To run Virtual PC 2007 I would have to upgrade to “Professional” or “Ultimate”, something which didn’t agree with me.  So I popped in my Acronis Rescue CD and restored back to the image I had made just before upgrading (thankfully I have been through enough Microsoft upgrades and installs to know to make a system image before doing one).

These kinds of completely arbitrary and quite frankly asinine limitations are absolutely disgusting and should not be tolerated.  There is absolutely no technological reason why 7 Home Premium can not run Virtual PC 2007.  The only reason you can’t run it is because Microsoft doesn’t want you to.  They want you to fork over MORE money for this shitty OS and use their “Professional” or “Ultimate” versions.  The whole idea of different versions of the same exact OS never sat with me well any way.  It’s just one more way to fuck your customers in the ass and make them pay more when they shouldn’t have to.  There should be 1 version.  That’s it.  It would end a lot of confusion from the end user stand point, and frustration from more technical users.

I for one will be avoiding Windows 7.  It offers nothing new worthy of upgrading, and only further tightens the controls Microsoft has over YOUR computer and REMOVES features you’re used to.