Yes, but then you have to pay retail for the license, rather than OEM with the box (ignoring volume licensing agreements, etc), so you're no better off financially with this approach. If anything, it's an argument in favour of virtualising linux on top of the Windows OS that came pre-installed if both OSs are required.

I'm no power user, but I can figure out LibreOffice just fine, thank you...

HOWEVER

Can you point out to me how exactly I am supposed to get it to integrate seamlessly with SharePoint etc. in an enterprise environment?

For better or for worse, the bulk of businesses out there are using products from the MS stack for collaborative working. To such businesses, if a F/OSS alternative to MS Office doesn't integrate seamlessly without major hackery then it isn't just a non-preferred alternative, it is a waste of everybody's time to suggest even putting it forward.

To be fair, it could be argued that, given their market penetration, Microsoft should be forced to license the SharePoint integration APIs on a FRAND basis, such that the F/OSS alternatives can join in the party and stand more of a chance in the corporate arena, but how likely is that to happen before MS's apparent goal of getting everyone (particularly in corporate environments) onto subscription-based productivity tools is realised? On the same note, how likely is it that MS would even comply?

To be honest, I prefer both OO and LO over MS Office, primarily on the grounds of MSs UI changes (yes, I am as unimpressed as a lot of people are with the ribbon. Don't get me wrong, I can find my way around it fine, and, up to a point, understand why MS felt that forcing it down our throats was necessary. I just prefer the "classic" interfaces of older versions and their alternatives), but I am a realist at heart and as such I don't foresee the death of MS Office (other than by migration to its "big brother" in the cloud) any time soon...

Yes, but....

Run it off a battery and (try to... with current tech, this thing would be kinda chunky!) stick it in your pocket. You'll have a very short race between two end results, your trousers igniting from the heat or the battery dying.

Call me eccentric, but I think I'd be interested to watch such a test just to see which end result wins out!

Eight people, actually... The 24 was a pass-count where an 8-wide mower would require three passes per lawn (8x3=24).

I guess you're the type of person who doesn't test well? Been there myself, but I've found that it helps to read the d*#n question properly before answering!?!

Generally, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but for the fact that my Windows 7 PC wakes from hibernation on keyboard events (USB).

What I found curious was that it doesn't wake from mouse events (also USB), but I am assuming that this may be down to the mouse being wireless. If it being wireless is the issue, however, then why does it wake from sleep on mouse events?!?

I guess that partly depends on what state you are looking to wake from. My desktop will wake from sleep on either keyboard or mouse inputs. From hibernation it will wake via keyboard, but not mouse. Might be due to the mouse being wireless whilst the keyboard is corded, but if that were true, why does it wake from sleep?

I thought the only way to be sure was to nuke from orbit?

Actually, it's all year round, not just in the summer!

Of course... it's reassuring to know that one of the reasons to implement it is to prevent suspects from being able to claim iSore!

I really don't think their intention in the proliferation of CCTV in the UK was to make it easier for police officers to covertly check out the rear ends of females! Then again...?

I'm guessing the official response from not only Microsoft, but also most hardware vendors here would be "You're doing it wrong!"

The clue is in the name... Desktop... i.e. it goes on top of the desk!

Tipple digits? I don't believe drink-driving had even been brought up so far in this conversation!

Out by an order of magnitude. TFS says 30000 percent, not 30,000 times. Works out at about 26 and a half GiB. (or maybe I need more caffeine?!?)

I may be missing something here, but last time I checked, if you download the offline installer, it doesn't bundle, or even offer, the Ask.com tool-bar (certainly not if you are installing it silently). Furthermore, you can disable automatic updates via command-line switch / post-install registry change so that it doesn't automatically prompt you to download the next update as a web-based installer and run the risk of forgetting to un-tick the Ask.com tool-bar option

Surely those of us in business / enterprise environments are using this and are capable of keeping up-to-date with new releases without trusting your update mechanism to a third party? And that's not to mention preventing calls because end-users can't install an update that has automatically downloaded itself and prompted them to run it due to not having admin rights (you are locking your users down, aren't you?!?). Add to this, manually deploying updates rather than leaving yourself in the hands of Oracle means you can test first to make sure the new release doesn't break anything (you are doing this too, right?).

About the only people this would affect are home users who, at the end of the day, will just accept whatever is shovelled at them and may un-install the tool-bar later if it bothers them that much. Consequently, the damage to good-will exists only in the heads of those like us who actually know what goes on under the hood and give a damn about it. Personally, I know what's going on, but as I can avoid it with trivial amounts of effort, I don't really care. Yes, as a business practice, I find it somewhat distasteful, but at least they give you the option to say no. I, for one, am not about to lose any sleep over it! I can understand why they do it. It'll either be a contractual obligation that they inherited when they acquired JAVA via SUN, or it could be a way of getting (I won't sully the word earning) a few extra pennies wherever they can. The end result is an easily-avoidable minor annoyance, so in real terms it's of far less concern to me than a lot of other things that are going on in the industry.

That's not the only problem...

Unless I've missed something pretty damn fundamental, Apps developed for Metro on the Desktop won't be finding their way onto Tablets or Phones without having to be recompiled. Last time I checked, the x86 presence in the Phone/Tablet world was pathetically low.

I may, however, have completely misunderstood something here... It is worth noting that I'm not a programmer, so I'm not really clear on how much extra effort is involved in getting a coded for x86 app working on ARM-based devices.