Under the "Use Express Settings" header it listed everything that would be set. One of the items was "Default Browser: Internet Explorer" (note that it only had this text if IE wasn't already the default). The IE blog has screenshots of this behavior: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/05/01/ie8-installation-the-user-is-in-control.aspx

Since that post was written, they've decided to move the default browser page out of the express settings and require users to make a choice (unless IE is already their default browser). You'll notice that the user really does have to make a choice as no option is selected by default (the 'Next' button is disabled until they choose 'Yes' or 'No'). Here's the IE blog post with screenshots of the new behavior, since Slashdot didn't link to it directly: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/07/16/changes-to-ie8-s-first-run.aspx

Morro (and OneCare) are for unmanaged computers (home users, perhaps small companies). Forefront Client Security is the anti-malware software intended for business use. Both will use the same anti-malware engine, but FCS has all of the manageability and reporting that you would expect in an enterprise.

I don't really see Morro as an attempt to compete in the home anti-virus market (in other words, Morro is not intended to take sales away from any of the other vendors). The real goal is to try to have anti-virus on all PCs worldwide. There are a number of large markets outside the US where few PCs have anti-virus software. And it wouldn't surprise me if the US market has a fair number of PCs where the trial/subscription for whatever the OEM installed has expired.

The Win7 E skus don't have iexplore.exe anywhere on them. There isn't an entry in the control panel to re-enable IE. You will have to install an additional package that contains iexplore.exe if you want IE (OEMs may choose to install this package). Regular Win7 skus allow you to enable or disable IE without downloading anything. However, these skus will not be sold in Europe.

I don't have a Vista box handy right now, but I know the Win7 help text is quite extensive compared to older versions of Windows. Typing FTP in Windows Help provides instructions on how to use Windows Explorer to access ftp sites. Though it's not much more complicated than accessing any other files, you just type the address in the address bar (and to get you started they give ftp.microsoft.com as an example).

If you want the terms of use for Microsoft software, here they are: http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx.

I'm a dev on the AD RMS team and I can't imagine this being from our marketing team. RMS is designed to solve two main problems: unauthorized access and accidental leakage. The document is encrypted no matter where it goes (laptop, USB key, bittorrent, etc.). Only authorized users will be able to open the doc in the first place. Once an authorized user has opened a document, they are provided with a certain set of rights (the ability to forward, edit, print, etc.). These are meant to provide protection against accidental leakage. In other words, a user will have to actively circumvent RMS in order to leak the document (use a digital camera, re-type the document, hack Office/RMS/Windows, etc.). An example where this is important is in a long email thread. The thread may have started as a confidential discussion about two vendors. Later in the discussion, a question comes up involving one of the vendors. A careless user might forward the thread to that vendor, forgetting about the confidential discussion that started the email. If the user doesn't have the forward right, RMS would have blocked this action. Furthermore, the access control for the thread may also prevent the vendor from reading the mail ("Contoso Confidential - FTE Only" template).

An authorized malicious user will be able to circumvent RMS (at the very least by memorizing the document and recreating it later). In practice, companies find RMS to be valuable, with full knowledge of its limitations and design goals.