Mailbag: More Is More with Windows 7?

Why so few? They should give you choices as follows: For the Home versions, Home Real Light (no Internet), Home Light (with Internet), Home Medium (no Internet but peer-to-peer), Home Premium (with Internet and peer-to-peer) and Home Ultra (has everything but costs more).

For the Professional versions, there should be Professional Real Light (more bells and whistles than Home but no Internet); Professional Light (same as Real Light but with Internet); Professional Medium (no Internet but sharing); Professional Featured (Internet and sharing); Professional Premium I, II and III (Internet, sharing, can interface with Enterprise and costs more); and Professional Premium Ultra (Internet, sharing, can interface with Enterprise, costs more and crashes less).

For the Enterprise versions: Enterprise Entry (more bells and whistles than Premium Ultra, somewhat unstable), Enterprise Medium (more bells and whistles than Enterprise Entry but only crashes occasionally) and Enterprise Ultra (rarely crashes, but when it does...).

And then, Ultra Ultimate Windows 7, which would have all the bells and whistles, is better than Enterprise Ultra and, like Mac OS X, what's a reboot? And what's a crash? Because it's a licensed copy of Mac OS X, and what you should've purchased in the first place for much less money.
-Anonymous

And Marsorry, writing form Namibia, thinks it doesn't matter how many versions of Windows 7 there are -- it's still just another Vista:

I wonder why there's such a general consensus that Windows 7 should be called "Windows 7." A major version number should constitute a major upgrade. Since Windows 7 is still effectively Windows Vista (6) with the big bugs fixed, it should really be called Windows 6.1 or 6.5. Looking at the screenshots and feature set, there's nothing revolutionary about it. Vista changed the communication system and the presentation system, among others, while possibly biting off more than it could chew. Windows 7 doesn't quite do that. If anything, it's cutting back on what it needs to run, tightening the belt while providing minor tweaks here and there.

This is not a major upgrade. Microsoft would like us to believe so, but it's just confirming what Microsoft has been saying all along: Vista was a good operating system that did only a few things wrong. Now Microsoft will sort out the few wrong things and give Vista right back to us.
-Marsorry

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to dbarney@redmondmag.com.

Posted by Doug Barney on February 18, 2009 at 11:53 AM