Within Add/Remove Programs you and Add/Remove Windows features as well as if using group policy in a domain environment this is also where you can set programs to be picked up for install. As well as (not that anyone would use this method) you can install software from Add/Remove by navigating to the installer through the Add/Remove GUI. Your comparrison of Ubuntu to Kubuntu (GNOME to KDE) and Windows XP to Windows 7 is a huge leap. There are loads of difference between XP and 7 far beyond the GUI. Not to mention that you can make XP look just like 7 with some modes and extra software. I am a fan of Linux but a MS Administrator by trade. I'd love to see more people use Linux and see what they are missing. What I would really like is to see the battle between the major three Windows, OSX, GNU/Linux end and a new OS born that combines the best of breed from all three. Having used Windows for many years and GNU/Linux for only a few I now find myself nearly weekly saying, damn, I wish I could do this in Windows like in Linux, or Damn, why is this so hard to find/change in Linux, in Windows it's right there. None of them is perfect and each does certain things better than the other. I completely agree with other posters though, and even in my own experience, that often when using a new OS you do compare it to what you are used to. That is human nature. And most end users aren't admins or programmers, they can't look beyond their biases and think, what would make a better OS, not why is this not like what I am used to.

It's about fraking time.

So much for letting sleeping computers lie.

Right, because no one else would have ever come up with this idea, right?

It also hid that it installed so deeply in your system you needed a virtual colonoscopy to find all its parts and remove them when you finally realized that the software and service was crap.

And this is a good thing, why?

This I can't argue too much one b/c it did make web browsing accessable to the common person. Which I believe is in part the basis for good software and hardware. If something isn't usable it isn't going to go far. And then (when AOL was big) and now the majority of computer/internet users are not Power Users, they are not Programmers, they are not that computer savvy. And making tech that is easy for people to use is going to be a main driver in development and marketing. So yes, they did make a "smart' decisions in this respect. Except that I don't believe that AOL's implementation of their GUI was good, I mean come on after all it was AOL.

And I think the internet no matter how fancy your GUI is will always be the geek's private playground.

+1 Considering some of the "techs" Verizon and Comcast have sent out to my locations this is most likely the case.

There are many reasons why an IT Department might not elect, or have the ability, to power down or enable power management capabilities of computers. For example one of my environments is used 70-80% of the day and the only time I have to run updates and daily tasks is at night, which leave me almost an intangible window for powering down my machines. And I completely agree with those of you who said not to lay this on the IT Department b/c you are right. Often times we do not have the authority in our organizations to make that decision or our specific environment does not allow for any down time.