With Windows XP, I found, as I expected, that there is no easy way to upgrade. ...I had to reinstall every, last application, fonts and drivers. ... The only version of Windows that can be upgraded without jumping through hoops is Vista. Even Vista, however, can only be upgraded easily from the same version to another or to Windows 7 Ultimate. [Mossberg had to reinstall all of his programs with Vista, so the few who suffered through that may not really have it easier.]

In stark contrast, Ubuntu was easy to upgrade. There's simply no comparison. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is also an easy upgrade. Just like Ubuntu Linux, all you really need to do is put in the DVD, make a few mouse clicks, and go have lunch while it runs. Once installed, both Snow Leopard and Ubuntu ran perfectly. That's more than I can about Windows 7. [typical Windows networking problems follow]

Users will have to erase their entire hard disk and re-install everything to switch to Windows 7. This video was weird because Mossberg was a huge booster of Windows 7 in January. Now [WSJ Mossberg] guy is providing a reality check. ... Apparently Windows 7 has changed enough so that you cannot drop it in as a new OS and expect it to run anything that has been previously installed. In the past, this upgrade-in-place was always feasible, although it was never as good as a clean install.

Hundreds of millions of Internet users were annoyed because of Windows botnet-based DDoS aimed at one (1) person. ... Some people out there used no fewer than six Windows botnets to go after this one guy. And, in the process, they knocked out, for hours at a time, most of the major social networks.

It happened because Windows is an insecure piece of junk. Anyone who knows anything about security knows that this kind of disaster was only a matter of time. Windows botnets are responsible for DDoS attacks and most of e-mail spam. You cannot secure Windows. Microsoft keeps saying that they will, and they always fail. Period.

the results were mixed. Boot times, despite dedicated tweaking from Microsoft were slightly worse than in Vista SP2 or XP SP3 (by over a second). Shutdown times, though, showed much improvement over the slow XP, and even some improvement over Vista. Since the 7100 build, Windows 7's performance in Microsoft Office and iTunes has improved significantly. In the Office benchmark, though it still gets beat by both Vista and XP.

Debian's decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction. It is dangerous to depend on C#, so we need to discourage its use. .... This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. ... [writing and using applications in mono] is taking a gratuitous risk.

Ultimate Extras was among the elements Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the early-2007 release of Windows Vista Ultimate to distinguish it from lower-priced versions. ... But users blasted Microsoft for the paltry number of add-ons it released and its leisurely development pace. ... Currently, Microsoft barely mentions Extras in the online pitch for Vista Ultimate .... A company blog dedicated to Ultimate Extras, where company employees occasionally posted news of the feature, is no longer online. It was also a magnet for critics.

Microsoft Corp. will not offer "Ultimate Extras" in Windows 7, the company has confirmed, saying it abandoned the heavily criticized concept to focus on "existing features." "Our new approach to planning and building Windows doesn't have the capacity to continue to deliver features outside the regular release cycle," a company spokeswoman said...