What’s all the hype about anyway?   Isn’t Windows 7 at least two years away? Guess since most of us are still on XP and probably won’t upgrade to Vista, we should really start thinking about Windows 7 as the next Windows OS to migrate to.

While I’m seriously thinking of moving, all but those Windows only applications, entirely to Open Source it’s nice to see some people are actually giving relatively serious concerns of this new Windows release.

Lee Gomes, in a WSJ article gave some things he’d like to see in Windows 7:

1. One stock keeping unit (SKU). I agree, let’s get rid of all those Vista releases. Or at least, like others, go to something the average Joe can understand. Something like Windows 7 Lite, Laptop, Desktop, Server, Enterprise, etc.. You get the picture.

2. Smart scalable graphics. While I can see the point here about being able to fine tune or have Windows smart enough to keep things readable I’m not too sure this would be #2 on my list.

3. OS snapshots and an undo feature. This would be nice if there was some very good and reliable software behind it. I personally don’t trust this form of a backup and recovery scenario for desktops. I would need something that kept extremely well track of every change I made to my system and files. This would mean not only a timestamp on files, I can change those, but also internal block changes to really understand what I’ve changed. I also have a real difficulty with my Mom and Dad being able to use something like this. They have a hard enough time finding the rewind button on the VCR…or is it a DVD…:).

4. Open it up. Probably the best of the 5 suggestions given by Lee but I can’t see Microsoft opening things up anytime soon. Although with the court rulings that have played out this last month, and the possible restructure of Microsoft, who can tell.

5. Make sure Windows 7 actually works. While this is a cheap shot by Lee I think we can all agree that it is the number one reason why we are reluctant to upgrade our XP machines.