Microsoft’s beavering away on the next generation of Windows, and rather than piling in new features and applications, it’s actually stripping out lots of programs to make the operating system smaller and faster.
According to Slashdot, Windows 7 will go on sale without many of the bells and whistles found within Vista.
Amongst the apps being left out are Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker. Instead of being bundled as standard, users will need to download them through Windows Live instead.
It’s a move that takes Microsoft in completely the opposite direction to Apple, which has been bundling its iLife suite with every Mac for years, and regularly adds new applications, such as GarageBand, most recently, iWeb.
However, the result should be a smaller, lighter Windows, with much less clutter on the desktop and Start menu from day one, and that has to be a good thing.
