Dear Jimmy Greystone, you make some good points only it is not just Pilaar39 that Microsoft is impacting, but myself and all people like me. Microsoft is controlling an entire class of folk who have grown up with Windows, enjoy working and playing with it, making mistakes, learning, recovering and generally having fun with an operating system on a personal computer.
I can no longer do that with Windows. Windows 7, as you rightly point out, is now crafted for the institution and Microsoft has turned its back on the individual.
So I now use OS X. I have an excellent GUI. I can set myself administration rights that let me do almost everything I want to at the GUI level. There is UNIX underneath and I have significant control of the system down there - as long as I know what I am doing, and with "man" there is little that is not visible if I take the time to read the documentation.
And, when occasion requires, I have sudo access, which gives me the world in a lightly controlled way - and I can always access the machine as root, or super user, if I know how to do so.
I ask questions many, but many times, because I do NOT know what I am doing or do NOT understand the reasoning behind some decision or idea. Pilaar39 is doing this, and it is a very fair question and although your answer is a good one, I think you might have been gentler. I think Pilaar39 is most certainly not a lunatic, nor was he ranting and raving. He was making a good point.
I recently purchase a new HP quad-core 8 GB machine for Flash programming, html design and development and database work. The old machine was too slow. HP decided to sell the machine with Windows 7 Home Basic. All my Windows machines run XP. I blame no one in this decision, least of all myself (?), but I did not realize that Windows 7 in this form was so severely hamstrung. Windows 7 Home Edition is a horrendous OS, it protects the owner to the degree of fanaticism. So I suppose I must go and spend a bunch of money to get Premium? And how much is that hobbled, should I spend more and get professional, or - good grief - "Ultimate?"
It's pathetic.
So Windows is welcome to the big institution with their mundane, boring, day to day slog in a "safe" environment, with all the people living secure happy lives and protected by ThoseWhoKnowBest. 1984 is a bit late, but it has arrived.
I like to have fun with my PCs, my Macs, networks and Linux boxes, as well as work with them. As do many others. Pilaar39 raises a good point and it is exactly this point which makes Windows no longer welcome in my house.