You'll Be Able to Turn off Microsoft Features in Windows 7

Hallelujah:

It turns out it is not just Internet Explorer that users will be able to turn off in Windows 7.

In a blog posting on Friday, Microsoft noted that, with Windows 7, customers will have the option of disabling a number of features of the operating system, should they so choose.

Testers had noticed that users of recent Windows 7 builds could turn off the Web browser, in addition to many other things that were already part of a "Windows Features" dialog box. However, in its blog, Microsoft noted that there are a number of things that users could not turn off in Windows Vista, but will be able to in the final version of Windows 7. Among the new options, users will now be able to turn off things such as Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, the XPS Viewer and several others.

"If a feature is deselected, it is not available for use," Microsoft said in the blog. "This means the files (binaries and data) are not loaded by the operating system (for security-conscious customers) and not available to users on the computer. These same files are staged so that the features can easily be added back to the running OS without additional media.