All the more reason for me to track down an xp laptop for my new one.

bloody microsoft!

Well, it might be appealing to a certain percentage of the sighted users. Microsoft is trying to turn the computer into a nice looking pile of crap, rather than make it the simple (in terms of outlook) yet powerful tool it once was back in the days of the good old Dos, or like it still can occasionally be with some distributions of Linux or Unix. :-)
Anyway, nobody forces an user to have Windows Live Essentials installed even on a Vista or 7 laptop, that's the good thing. Well, at least they do not do it for now. :-)So you can just remove that piece crap along with tons of others and be good to go.
Lukas

hi,
all microsoft wants is visual crap
and they love to slow down pcs
guess what!
the new microsoft security essentials increased boot time by 12 seconds in cnet's benchmark test
and it increased shut down time by 6 seconds
İ wish microsoft would stop! improoving interfaces and gees and start putting accessibility keystrokes and features

Well, do not treat me as a lawyer of Microsoft but you have to admit that if you have a screen reader like JAWS on your computer, which serves you well, and if you have an Office that is your virtual bureau that you're working in it, or if you have lots, and lots of audio games that entertain you you in that stressful life, then you should stop complaining because all of those things exists just because of Microsoft. For those who fusses about such problems that they are having: Like many other things in the life, you have the advantage only if you have a lot of money in that world, and the softwares are no exception for this rule. For example, if you are not user of pirated version of JFW, then you could go directly to their support site, in order to get solutions about such problems that are currently being mentioned on that topic.

I'm afraid I have litle respect for microsoft. We need to use their software not because it is good, but because it is universal. It's rather the same way back in the 80's betamax videos were actually better quality, more well made nd held more content than the standard vhs tapes, but because vhs had more cash for promotion more companies used them to reccord their films so beatamax went under despite having the superior thing.

In windows 7, microsoft have purely gone for the flashy option which is very inconvenient for us, hence why i'm currently searching for a new laptop with windows xp.

Oh, and then there is the way they treat the people who actually build the pc components in china which is down right disgusting.

as to security, i never trust ms default security anyway and always go with avg.

The only reason i don't get a mac myself is that my entire phd thesis is written in ms word, and that I have many games and other programs which wouldn't run on one. Pluss in fairness, even while their products may be good, some of aples other practices are less savery, such as charging for developer licenses, though it is worth noting that unlike microsoft they actually write their own screen reader into the os, so Vi users don't have! to spend huge amounts of money on third party software at all.

win7 is only choice
i also don't trust microsoft security
thats why i disabled win defender and use avira antivir better product than microsoft's security essentials
and dark look how insecure it is!
microsoft doesn't protect the program's files and reg keys from being munipulated so viruses can go right in and disable microsoft security essentials
and why should i use there product when there is a better product on the choices list

your choice
you will probably have to convert it to xp

hi,
you can turn off all uh, most animations by setting it for best performance in performance options
and yeah live essentials 2011 is soo crappy
the ribbon! that bloody ribbon!
yeah programs tend to get inaccessible even avira started to go inaccessible
my current programs
office 2003
avira antivir 9.0
windows live messenger 2009
jaws 11
i hate to say this but i have no choice but to crack jaws
because i have no sponsorship in this country
and the price is waaay to much for a screen reader
my other programs are freeware
whenever microsoft posts a new application it gets worse and worse and worse

Guys, I'm afraid I have to show my ignorance again lol.  I've seen more and more posts comparing different screen readers and I honestly don't know how they work or exactly what they do.  I've never used one before and I'm only assuming I know what they do.  Clearly posts like enes' tell me that some must be expensive, but are others cheap or free?  I'm completely new to this so please forgive me for sounding like an idot.  lol

The screen readers that I'm familiar with are Jaws, Connect out loud (a watered-down version of jaws that only works on the internet and basic programs like notepad and CD player), Window Eyes (I've only used it very briefly and don't know much, but it felt similar to Jaws), and PW Web speak (basically a talking web browser that I'm pretty sure was archaic ten years ago).

Jaws costs close to $1000US, with a demo version for free that you have to restart every forty minutes. I've found that some demos expire, and others don't (I've been using a demo of jaws 3.7 on my windows 98 computer for seven years... but the computer won't boot any more. . Same version of jaws running on ME for about as long. I've had jaws six and seven expire on XP, though.).
Connect Out Loud gives you twenty four hours of demo, then runs for ten minutes, sleeps one minute, then runs for another ten minutes.
I've noticed no restrictions with the free version of PW Web speak, but it is pretty old, so it crashes with something as simple as wikipedia.

I only had Connect out loud on the 98, and would basically use it as an extention of Jaws when the demo would run out and I was in the middle of something in one of the supported applications. The minute sleep wasn't quite as bothersome as the restarting the computer every forty minutes, so sometimes I would use COL for days if I was working in wordpad.
On the computer I primarily use, I have only the demo of jaws 10 and PW. I don't use PW much, but I've pulled it out a couple times lately when I'm in the middle of posting here and jaws dies.

I recall reading that in South Africa, Jaws is over $9000.
Unfortunately, Jaws is pretty cheap compared to most accessibility products out there. Especially books; braille textbooks cost about as much as my tuition (which is in itself expensive...)!

The Trecker Breeze costs about a thousand dollars, and so far it seems to be about as good as the average forty-dollar GPS people put in their cars. And mine seems to have died somehow, after only a few months...

this is getting off topic!
start a new topic for this in my opinion
we are discussing microsoft here