Oh, you are right, to a point. You can gain some of that control back by settings within 7. But, the default is definitely not user oriented, it is more MS deciding "what's best" for you and making decisions for you. I hate it when I want to install a program and have to ask permission from the administrtor when I AM the administrator!!! Or, have administrator rights (at work for instance) on my machines. That can be turned off. It's not easy, and not readily published, but it's an option.

Hey, most of these graphic operating systems, no matter what they are, Linux, Mac, Windows, whatever, do things in the background that we don't have any idea about. Who knows what is being sent back to them in the form of demographics about users. We'll never know.

But, the point here is that you can run these simulators on Windows 7 and they work just fine. Some of them, that is. I'm fairly certain that some of the lesser software writers have not yet optimized their software for use on 7 or even set up their programs for them to work on 7.

Recently, I needed a fast computer with lots of memory to do some analysis at work. The notebook that I had was more of a netbook than a notebook, and just did not cut it. In fact, the most used program that I needed to use would not even load up. So, I complained to the powers to be and shortly after that, I was given the green light to "buy" what I needed.

So, I went to Dell and bought the highest end processor, with the most RAM, and the fastest, largest HDD that I could find that would fit in this laptop.

Unfortunately, it came with Windows 7 Ultimate installed. Unfortunate because my most used software would not run on this 64 bit Win 7 machine. But, the advantage I had was the programmers sit a short distance from me (measured in feet) and we got together and they were able to set up the software so it would work on my machine.

Point is, it can be done, if the software people will get off of their duffs and get going on this stuff. It all comes down to priorities for them. Once they figure that enough 7 computers are out there, and people are not buying their stuff, well, they will fix it... but unitl then, it's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" that prevails.

CGr.