Come on zio, we are all used to switching on a pc, logging on to Windows, and then waiting as the icon's in the taskbar slowly fill up. As each icon is loading it's software and doing it's thing, this takes time. We are used to seeing the mouse as an hourglass, this can take a few minutes.

The really annoying thing I find is that there is no program which is in charge of all of this that displays in a simple GUI what is happening and if it's necessary and switch-off-able.

So much crap software is allowed to do what it wants in windows, it's definitely not for the customer's benefit. I would like more GUI control of this. This would be easy to do, if Microsoft were a customer focused company.

RE: the nice new easy-quick-start laptop/pc OS. Nice idea, shame it's so expensive.

I wonder will Windows 7 give us a fast-start stripped-down user-selectable dual/triple/quad boot mode? Not likely, which is a shame.

The virtualised "hybrid" version (the one that doesn't dual-boot, and the only one I'd bother considering) has a number of issues:

1. It's not just Windows-only, it's Vista-only. To be exact, Vista SP-1 32-bit English, and nothing else. If you've upgraded* your Vista licence to XP, you can't use it;

2. The list of approved target machines is pretty limited. Eight, to be exact. If you're not using a tested machine, beware!;

3. Information from user forums suggests that there are many problems, particularly on non-tested platforms. Bear in mind that if it goes wrong, you may well have lost your original operating system, and all the data associated with it. Even if you haven't, restoring the system to a workable state may require expert help and additional software;

4. I put in an FAQ request a while ago, asking whether it's possible to use VMWare or VirtualBox when booted from HyperSpace Hybrid. Phoenix has been silent on this question, and I have grave doubts that it would be possible to do so, at least at any reasonable speed;

5. A number of users appear to have had problems uninstalling HyperSpace.

It seems like a useful product, but I can't help but think it's been released too early.

Jon
(* Better performance, better compatibility with pre-existing applications and hardware ... how's it not an upgrade?)

The long wait is over.... we've got an unbiased and fairly objective piece of work! </sarcasm

"....several GB of TSRs load and services crawl to life...." Yeah, right, machines with 1 physical gig + 1 swap gig can undoubtely load SEVERAL gigs of stuff into memory. Besides, TSRs (AFAIK) died with MS-DOS.

".... They don't need to run all the useless Windows background tasks and DRM, so it works much more efficiently."
Again... yeah, right. Everything in Windows is useless and DRM-related...

.... where did I hear that the press was supposed to be neutral and unbiased?