This OS is great for grandma/grandpa, Mac users (
), and anyone else who has no freaking idea how computers work, and nor do they care. They
need something that prevents them from accidentally messing things up. And they don't
care where their documents, pictures, etc are as long as Windows can serve them up wherever they might have been stuffed. Personally, this encourages disorganization since Windows takes care of that for you. Me, I like knowing exactly where things are and the nuts and bolts of how things work.
You can change location of everything in W7. You would not complain if you knew how :)
Like Vista, it's needlessly "pretty". I don't want a bubble-gum interface with semi-transparent windows. All that means is more CPU and memory resources are being used for the base OS. Sure, you can get the shell to look like the old classic style, but it really does nothing for increasing performance.
Why increase performance of something that is fast enough
No "up-directory" button in windows explorer. OK, that doesn't seem like a big deal to many, but I
really miss it! So, I either use a keyboard shortcut to do it, or use the left navigation pane to click where I want. Easy enough I guess, but the "up directory" button was easier and more intuitive IMO.
Shortcuts are way faster to move around the system. And with a mouse with lot of bttons you dont even need to use keyboard
The Start Menu. Hmmm, I guess it's tolerable now that I have my common programs pinned to the main menu. Being able to type programs into the search bar works, but I feel it's too simplistic.
Is not the OS supposed to be simple to use? If you want to use the hard way go to search for your software in a program files directory 
Many dialog boxes are much more "wordy". A perfect example is the dialog box you get when copy a file to a location where a file with the same name exists. WinXP is simple and to the point, Win7 explains things more for the less-than-knowledgable user.
Not everyone is a IT pro and good explanation does not hurt.
The Start Menu and Explorer can be returned to the XP format via a plug-in called ClassicShell, but it's just one more program running eating resources for nothing.
No need for old style start menu. you will see in couple weeks with w7
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind "change"; I
gladly welcomed XP after dealing with Win98! But to me, an Operating System should be just that: software that operates the system. Period. And 99% of the resources from all the fast hardware I get should go to applications. The OS taking ~1.1GB of RAM to run for around 40 base processes is ludicrous, not matter how cheap memory gets.
Windows is not just a core operating system. It includes a ton of applications. Have you seen how much resources standard user friendly linux needs? What would you do with just a kernel and couple drivers?
But it's not all bad I guess. It does boot faster than similarly equipped (hardware-wise) systems I've seen, and does not have nearly the amount of annoying "Are you sure you want to do this?" messages.
Yes this is what we wanted. Stable, fast, solved indexing.