scott wrote:
>> It always surprised me that M$ didn't make some sort of "business" 
>> version of Windows that is appropriate for business use. I mean, look 
>> at Windows XP Professional. It comes with such unecessary items as 
>> Windows Media Player
> 
> Just because your company doesn't have any use for WMP doesn't mean that 
> no company does.  All the companies I work with quite often send out 
> video clips to illustrate certain problems they are having, it's much 
> faster and cheaper than travelling to another country or shipping the 
> equipment to another country.

Wouldn't you need a video camera to do that?

Still, I guess having the capacity to *play* video is defensible. Having 
a complex music playing and categorisation system seems like something 
that should be in a home product, not a business product. Likewise for 
CD ripping and DVD burning. How many office workers need to author their 
own DVD movies?

>> and Windows Movie Maker
> 
> Never had an opportunity to use it yet personally, but why not include 
> it? The executable is only 4MB or something, it's not beyond the realms 
> of possibility that someone might want to use it to make a simple 
> compilation of videos, or to trim/recompress a single video before 
> emailing.

Is there a codec on Earth that would make a video small enough to send 
by email?

>> not to mention Freecell and Minesweeper.
> 
> I see several people playing minesweeper during their lunch break, is 
> that banned where you work?

Technically yes. Anything that involves a computer but doesn't make the 
company money is strictly speaking prohibited. Not that anybody is going 
to enforce that one...

>> I understand that there *is* a seperate business edition of Vista, so 
>> maybe they got it right this time?
> 
> I have the business version of Vista, and no it didn't have any games 
> installed, but I easily fixed that by going to Add/Remove windows 
> components and adding them.  And yes it also has Windows Movie Maker and 
> WMP installed by default too.

Hmm, interesting. Does it also have "simple file sharing" turned on by 
default? (I.e., you can't access network files properly.) Does it pop up 
silly windows saying "ERROR! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE!"

> You do realise you can make custom installs of Windows, if you don't 
> want any of your employees to use WMP, Windows MM, or play any games 
> then you can easily just not install them.  And it's quite 
> straightforward to uninstall them on existing installations and prevent 
> them being installed again.

It's just that I would have thought they would make a version of Windows 
taylored to business use without anybody needing to spend hours 
reconfiguring it.

It's like Symantec antivirus. You buy their home product, and you get 
pretty screens and cutesy wizards - and warnings popping up every 20 
seconds to tell you it's doing stuff. You go buy the Corporate Edition 
and once it's installed you'll never know it's even there. Different 
target audience.

I'm surprised M$ doesn't do that with Windows.

(Just sit and watch the bannar that scrolls past as Windows XP installs. 
It tells you about how Windows now comes with tools to let you chat to 
your friends online, keep your children safe from predators, watch the 
latest DVD movies, and all kinds of other stuff that is completely 
irrelevant in a business setting.)

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