Because they figured you'd be dumb enough to pay the extra money to downgrade to a semi-functional OS.

In other news, water is wet...

Well, the Win7 install interface is much better than its predecessors, and besides, it's not like I had anything of real value (data wise) on my box to begin with. I've found that with certain Linux distros that reformat/reinstall also tends to work a lot better than getting your hands into the nuts and bolts (a lot of that occurred with Ubuntu). I think part of my issue there was the network interfaces weren't exactly compatible with Linux to begin with (the damned Broadcom 4318 chipset on my Compaq laptop), so that may have been a contributing factor.

Methinks MS had a good start with the Beta and RC testing, now they just need to get their acts together with the patching QC.

Well, took advantage of both 7HP and 7Pro, and I was having the same issue after I went from HP to Pro. Didn't get the "un-" genuine message, but things would slow up and freeze, but I suspect that the Digital River stuff once again is to blame...

Also helps I spent the extra $26 for both DVDs and doing fresh installs with those after getting pooch screwed by the DR download.

Gee, sounds like my old office. You know, the place that didn't let me access webmail, but could get to /. with no issue. Yeah, they were insistent on using IE6 as well as, and I kid you not, Netscape 7.2. When I arrived there, everyone was bitching about the fact the IT folks had recently REMOVED FF from the standard desktop image for whatever reason.

It's a freakin' IC component. You would think that they would have enough smarts to customize FF to ensure that nothing got through the browser. Dolts.

No, I'm not implying that.

I just don't get why you'd pay more for something OLD that is expected to be there when you take it out of the box.

As I said, those discs didn't magically vanish when Microsoft said they were going to stop support. That's where I'm pointing out the confusion. Then again, the model appears to me to be used as a disincentive to get XP over Vista.

If the people want it, they shouldn't be penalized for it, that's all I'm saying. They'd still be able to get residuals because of the "OMG I can still get XP from this PC company!" reaction it'd generate, along with depleting the excess stock of now obsolete OS discs.

I also said that this is MS we're talking about. It's not supposed to make sense.

For something that was readily available not less than a year ago (do you really think that all those unsold XP CDs just vanished into thin air), it makes absolutely no sense to me that people should be charged EXTRA to use something that to many people and organizations is still considered a valued piece of software.

Then again, this is Microsoft we're talking about. It's not supposed to make any sense. Carry on.

Oddly enough, Rick Moranis revealed that the Mackenzie Brothers skit tacked on to the tail end of every episode of SCTV fulfilled the CRTC requirement. If someone could figure a way to do that for 'net content, you'd be golden.

Unfortunately, with the good efforts put on by the IC Enterprise Services (ICES) group and the big 6 orgs (CIA/DIA/NSA/NRO/NGA/DNI) to push the Intelink suite, a lot of the service organizations are still very reluctant to buy into the idea of a standard DoD Intelligence Information System (DoDIIS) suite. A lot of the agencies are still playing the "that's my mission" job, and very reluctant to give users control of what tools/programs they can install on their workstations.

I would venture to guess that until you can get the programs to work completely separate from the OS, that's how it's going to be at most places. Oh, and good luck with that.

Now, to be fair, are you talking the original, the Sears clone, or the repackaged version?

And sadly, Stella doesn't count, although you can pretty much find the entire library online with a little digging.