We also have applications that incredibly enough cannot be unchosen when you install the OS like: Movie Maker (this ones awful), MSN Messenger, Outlook and IE (I dont mind these two as I use them), Windows Media Player (I like this one too), Calculator, Syncronise, Paint (this ones awful too), Tour Windows XP, Sound recorder etc. I could go on and on.

I understand its best to install everything as default so the user won't miss anything, but it would be best if we could choose. Especially because of movie maker.

An alternative like Linux would be very nice, just a shame it isn't up to snuff on the hardware (5.1 sound cards) and software (games) support situation and the skinning system I have heard is no good. There XP is actually very nice, a common skinning system.

1. Only works every now and then, much better to have built the whole OS up more clean and logical like AmigaOS so you can easily fix anything that is wrong instead of having to reinstall. The only amigauser I know has never reinstalled his OS, he has only upgraded it the seven years he have so far used his Amiga. And he's still going, always having hes OS up-to-date latest version. Inredible.

2. As I said, much better to have a clean and simple solution instead of this registry chaos. The OS could just move the drivers to a folder, and if it was bad just delete it again. No worry about driver parts left behind and messing things up.

3. This wizard would be useless if the settings and files would be saved in easy moveable files and directories, instead we have the registry which is very hard to find things in and extract. Outlook is impossible to save/restore settings/addresses/emails/newsgroups without the Files and settings transfer Wizard. And when you do it, it usually brings in other settings you don't want. All in all its a bad thing. I still use Eudora 3.0 Pro for this reason, it stores every setting, email, address and account information in the directory where it is "installed," so when I reinstall the OS I only need to make a shortcut. This way I have kept email from the days when I used windows 95! Every program should work like this and boicott the evil registry.

4. This feature is supposed to "clean up" the HD and make more space available. What it removes and "cleans up" should have been easily managable from the start. Even newbie users can learn something. If things get too newbie, "wizards" will only make problems. Just take the installation wizard for instance, it copies and adds a bunch of unneeded registry entries and then makes a shortcut. Wouldn't it be better if one learned to unzip an archive, move the folder to where you wanted it, and created a shortcut. Then you could keep all settings and personal information in that folder and know where it is, and just create a shortcut if you should reinstall the OS. To make a backup (this is a little more advanced) just copy the files that contain the settings and personal information to another drive or server and you're done. Or if the application is small, just drag the whole folder to the server. To restore, you can easily delete the folder and drag it back. Yes Drag-N-Drop feature is one of the good ones of Windows.

Think if something goes wrong with the "system restore" function, then the user is pretty screwed, even though he is on the phone with a support person. What to do other than reinstall? Some cases require so. No, it would be much better with the folder system I presented to you, or something similar. Make it too easy, and you make it hard to fix if something goes wrong. The system is complicated and chaotic built up, looks like everything where random and they just tossed in new features right where they landed and no regards for a logic and simple system. Then they made "easy" wizards on top of that and this is what we got. System Restore and Files and Transfer wizards that don't always work.