When Asus first released their popular netbooks the first operating systems were variations of Linux distributions. Later Microsoft came up with a version of Windows XP that seems to work fine with the Eee model. But Vista, because of its size and resource requirement was not able to run on the mini laptop systems.

But during the recent Microsoft’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, the company made a point to show Windows 7 running on an Asus Eee netbook. Microsoft claims that changes under the hood allowed the new OS to function on the netbook, which is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Dual Core processor, 1GB of RAM and a 16 GB SSD flash memory drive.

According to the article from Todd Bishop, he stated that:

Windows chief Steven Sinofsky and Microsoft’s Mike Angiulo took a picture with a digital camera and plugged it into the machine, bringing up Windows 7′s centralized “Device Stage” device management area.

“You don’t have to go down-level, you don’t need anything stripped-down,” Angiulo said. “This is a full Windows experience on this PC … on the 16-gig SSD, with room to spare.”

So the technical challenge apparently has been met. What remains to be seen is how the emerging netbook market will affect Microsoft’s business. In many cases on netbooks, Microsoft is competing head-to-head with the open-souce Linux operating system.

So it does appear that Microsoft continues to improve on the performance issues that have plagued Vista. Hopefully the new OS will met our expectations and provide us all with an enjoyable experience.

Comments welcome.

Source.