A second look at the Windows 7 Display control panel, across product versions

I'd like to see Lauren confront this garbage. Might make her change her mind about how cool she isn't.

I think this is kind of scary, because it means that MS is 'intentionally' trying to get in the heads of what each user group will want to see. Could be well implemented...but there is a much larger chance it is a total 'swing'n'a'miss'.

Hmmm. A call for only letting users buy the top of the line version with no chance for them to choose a less expensive version without features they don't need. Seems to be a pattern emerging. No wonder Lauren's only choice in an OS X 17" laptop included $2,100 worth of extras she didn't need.

"gorath" asks: "Mike, come on, you can't seriously support having different display control panels for the different version, can you?" LOL... "gorath", you must be new here.

Except Mike is not really answering me. I am talking about the OS, not a piece of hardware. Mike rarely if ever answers directly, he spins to other subjects so he can make HIS point. I said nothing about "Lauren" and her laptop purchase. Windows 2008 installs pretty much feature free, stripped down if you will. You can then add "roles" and "features", including "Premium Desktop" which adds media player and such. My point is, is that its very possible for MS to sell one version of 7 and the user then could choose what they want to install. The only thing MS would have to do is maybe make the wizard that does this a tad more user friendly as the current one for 2008 is for Sys Admins. Corporations would love this as well since the desktop teams could pick and choose how their builds would be, very quickly. Instead the average user will get a dizzy list of crap to choose from. A major complaint of Vista when it rolled out. I guess that was missed by MS. Some users will pick up Home Premium to use at their small business and realize it cant join a domain, only to have to upgrade later. I have seen that happen many times with Vista and XP home.

"I really do believe there should only be one VERSION of windows, and as Snakedoctor says, let the users, or OEMs choose what features to leave in or remove." Nice! Everyone should buy Porsche Boxster S, for that price. If you want to remove stuff, get rid of it and turn it into a Boxster. Here's your argument: Microsoft should offer Windows Ultimate to everyone, irrespective of hardware. The price of the software is either constant or depends on the hardware that they're installing it on. Why do I think this will be more confusing than what they're doing now? Unlike OS X, Windows goes on a variety of hardware configurations. There is no way "one size fits all" will serve the purpose. If you think this is too confusing, you always have an option to switch to the Mac.

And, no. I wasn't talking about the display control panels. It does sound confusing to me, but in the end, unless Lauren buys one computer with Home Premium and another with Windows Starter, it's not likely to cause her much confusion. It's possible that she might. It looks like the Home, Business, and Ultimate versions will have the same configurations when installed on similar hardware. Why no Adjust Brightness in Ultimate, though?

In response to Paul's update about the machine running on a desktop that does not have the option to connect to a projector: "Why does that matter? Desktops, like say a dedicated one in the boardroom has need to connect to the projector as well as a laptop"????? I agree, this context dialog should be identical on each version with the options to change or not be able to change made in the applet being called itself. Having to support 5 different places to do the exact same thing will be a pain... And I hope Wae is right and this is corrected by the RC!

So, would you charge users for each feature that they install? Or would you charge everyone the Windows Ultimate price initially? There's no way Microsoft can survive by selling a barebones OS for Home Basic prices and then have the user customize it for free. They could charge users for each new feature, but that will end up being a lot more painful to the user. Moreover, your two minutes does not include installation time.

"Retail copies of Windows sold is a drop in the bucket." Exactly. So who would this benefit then? I'll tell you: it would only benefit OEM's, adding to shear confusion about costs associated with tweaking this or that. End-users get OEM software pre-configured somewhat by the OEM. Adding the ability for OEM's to further customize too many options is just bad for the consumer, and one of the things that Microsoft is trying to get away from. Microsoft already has Windows 7 set to install the Ultimate bits on a drive for future upgrades. Fitting the countless customization options into 5 SKU's and matching price points is better that saying "How do you want to customize the 10,000 customization options in Windows?" before the end of the OOBE, and also better than saying "Here's the OS with every option. Take it as it is. $150 please." Advanced users that actually take the time to customize options can do so after installation. Beginner users (of which the vast majority are) can pick and choose options if they so desire, but they shouldn't be burdened with umpteen choices before the OOBE completes. Of course, advanced users can customize options with an unattend script so that they're ready from the get-go. Good network admins should know that already....