Until Apple decide to finally bin Mac OSX, just like they did with their previous OS. Then you'll be forced to learn a new OS, will you move platforms? Probably not, but it will be fun visualising you bitch and whine like a little mactard

I can only theorise, but is a C average in America equivalent to a 3rd Class Honours or normal Degree in Britain? You wouldn't get touched with a bargepole over better grads here for that qualification. I have some sympathy for her. After all, I spent over 4 years searching for an IT job after I graduated (graduated in 2003, funnily enough I didn't try suing my Uni, or Osama for that matter). After a LOT of searching and hard work doing a job that neither enriched me or gave me any satisfaction, I finally found one. I had a much better degree than her. Sometimes life is like that. Live with it or shuffle of the mortal coil, your choice. The fact that she thinks she is owed a good job after studying for 4 years is a pattern I've come across more and more often these days. More and more grads are coming into jobs expecting top level pay and not to have to do the menial tasks that everyone has to do when they first start. Universities and Colleges are partly to blame for this shift in expectations, however the people most to blame are the grads themselves. I don't believe this is a uniquely American problem.

Get an Archos, a Zen, or any other number of MP3 players that are not only cheaper than the overpriced, underspec'd touch, but also work without any form of stupid vendor lock in software!

It's pretty much indefensible behaviour on MS's part. I like a lot of the things they do (Windows Server 2003 - 2008, Windows 7, Visual Studio .Net etc) but I equally dislike their sometime's underhanded business practices. Backing down now just smacks of putting the cookies back in the jar after you've been caught.

well i guess my reply is going to be no problem either, seeing as I asked for non anecdotal examples and most of your comments are opinion instead of fact, troll. Im using it right now, and my OPINION is that it doesn't suck. Windows 7 takes almost double the amount of ram to run as XP. - as did vista, no one has made the claim that it doesn't. Move with the times Windows 7 is much, much uglier than most of the compiz setups I've seen and run since sometime in 2007. - Opinion, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it sucks. Windows 7 crashes frequently, and does not play well with many applications and hardware that run perfectly on XP. - What setup are you using? I, have experienced no problems using it with a 4 year old computer. Athlon XP with 1gb Ram. It hasn't crashed once on me. Windows 7 takes longer to boot up than XP, Ubuntu, or most other distros. - Personally I found the bootup time to be comparable to XP Windows 7 takes longer to install than XP or Ubuntu. - I don't know about Ubuntu, but for XP that is just a plain lie. Windows 7 lacks many of the great FOSS apps that come standard in nearly every Linux distro. And the proprietary offerings that are suggested in many cases are inferior, slower, and not standards compliant (Firefox vs IE just being one very egregious example). - Absolutely nothing is stopping you installing firefox, or open office. That my friend, is trolling. Windows 7 had very lackluster gaming performance. I get easily 10 fps more in both Ubuntu AND XP when I play Urban Terror. There is a marked difference in performance in 1964 and Zsnes as well. - Ive never even heard of these games, so cant make a comment Windows 7 comes with Windows Media Player. VLC is much, much better in every way imaginable. - In which ways is it better? I have found that WMP12 plays everything I need it to. If I don't have a certain codec, I download the KLite codec pack. No problem. XP in performance and features It is at least one generation behind Ubuntu and XP in performance and features. - I cant comment for Ubuntu, as I haven't used it. However to suggest that it's 1 generation behind XP in performance and features is completely laughable. You ARE trolling. You have provided several comments that contain nothing but FUD.

what has that got to do with it? In answer to your question, people pre-order it so that they can have the latest OS based on a clean install. Clean installs are better than upgrades 100% of the time.

If I may interject, the theory that it's hurting them is quite wrong. Actually, if you look at the news reports from yesterday (15/7/2009) you'll see that Amazon sold out of the pre-orders within hours for Home premium. Some are even claiming that it's beaten the sales figures for Vistas entire 17 week pre-order period within 1 day. But hey, I thought this would have been on a NEWS site already. I'm forgetting this is /. though. The Microsoft.com site was so hard hit that it went down (whether this has to do with just being a crappy site I don't know). If this is any sort of indicator of how Windows 7 is going to sell in Europe as a whole (and it isn't until there's full figures to back it up) then i'd say Microsoft has done anything but harm their business.

Because in Europe there is no upgrade option. So you're getting the entire operating system, not just an upgrade. However, if you take the pre-order, you get the whole kit and caboodle for £50, which isn't bad at all.

My fictitious wife got herpes from sitting on a toilet seat, it wasn't her boss from work :P

Do you have any evidence to back this up? Im not making a claim as to whether Win7 is faster than Vista. However, what I can say, anecdotally, is that I installed a fresh copy of Vista. It sucked, badly. I then installed a fresh copy of Windows 7. Loving it. So much so that I generally don't remember that I'm using a pre-gold build of an OS.