Windows 7 performance boost due to popularity of Netbooks?

Emil Protalinski just posted an insightful piece on Ars Technica that says, in essence, we can attribute the (significant) improvements in Windows 7 performance to Microsoft’s attempts to wean Netbook users away from Windows XP.

Microsoft is very much aware that it’s not going to make much money offering XP on netbooks forever. So it’s really no surprise that when Microsoft announced the Windows 7 editions last month, it promised that all editions would run on netbooks. To achieve this goal, the company has been tweaking like no tomorrow. It’s never bothered doing that with a new Windows release, at least not to the extent that it is doing with Windows 7.

You bet your sweet bippy. That’s exactly what happened – and one of the main reasons why this ol’ boy with an admittedly jaundiced eye welcomes Windows 7 with open arms.

I’ve been running Windows 7 Ultimate on an ASUS EEE PC 1000H netbook for a month now, and it’s slick. It isn’t fast. But it’s fast enough. And compared to that monster “laptop” I used to lug around, it’s positively liberating.