No more Home Edition, Professional, Media Center, Home Premium, etc... Just one version that will do everything you need it to, regardless of what the person may use it for, be it business applications or home entertainment use, or gaming.
They do have one edition that will do everything. Windows Vista Ultimate. It has a suggested retail price of $319/$219.95, it also includes idiotic features like dreamscene as well as useful ones like bitlocker. Despite this, it still sucks. Microsoft makes multiple versions because they want to make more money by selling variations to different markets, but in the case of vista, its led to further confusion. Personally, I would like to see greater device support, and stability. The two biggest annoyances, I have with vista are its desire to reintroduce me to the BSOD. and the fact that I have a few devices that will not work with it.
I beta tested Vista Ultimate. Only thing I really liked was the chess game.
I'm well aware of all the different versions of Windows, and why Microsoft does it all. That's why I said to get rid of such practices and make one single, all purpose OS.
On the other hand, if I owned a business, I wouldn't want an OS that gave my employees more ways to goof off.
Naturally. But during the install process, when Windows Setup asks you what features you want installed, you can disable any and all games from being installed.
Also, since it is obvious that new versions of Windows are going to be built using the NT core, you can also grant limited access to all users except admins. It'll prevent anyone from installing anything on the system that they shouldn't.
Trust me, even business oriented operating systems don't prevent people from goofing off.
Before my mother retired, she was constantly having to uninstall games and movie player programs from the systems over at the jail because deputies would constantly download and install any games and other entertainment applications from the internet, and since they always whined and moaned about needing administrator privledges to do their jobs, they had no problems installing the applications they downloaded from the net.
Now if the games and other apps they put onto the machines didn't cause the damn things to crash or were laced with viruses, I don't think it would have been as bad, but my mom was constantly annoyed at the fact that she was having to constantly remove the same stuff over and over again, telling them not to do it cause the systems aren't meant for games, and that some of the programs they keep installing are laced with viruses.
But, as long as they have admin privledges on their workstations, they'll always do it.
So, to make sure your employees don't goof off, make sure that the Windows games aren't installed during the install process, or have them uninstalled when you get the machines, if the OS is preinstalled, and then set the user privledges to make sure they can't install anything unless authorized.