Week in Windows 7 news: Family Guy, Michael Dell embrace OS; the netbook OS of choice?

A look back at the week's biggest Microsoft Windows 7-related news stories:

Family Guy meets Windows 7

According to PC World, “Microsoft is sponsoring a Windows 7 television extravaganza next month in collaboration with FOX and ‘Family Guy’ creator/voice actor Seth MacFarlane. The program's working title is ‘Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show,’ and will weave Windows 7 promotions into the television special.”

Michael Dell: hates netbooks, loves Win7

The Dell CEO, answering questions at a Churchill Club dinner in Silicon Valley, gave netbooks a big thumbs down, but said he thinks Windows 7 can restore our faith in PCs. "If you get the latest processor technology and you get Windows 7 and Office 2010, you will love your PC again," Dell said. "And we actually have not been able to say that for a long time. It's a dramatic improvement."

Existing PCs, laptops okay with Windows 7 

Nearly 90% of existing desktops and laptops within corporations can support Windows 7, but many of those assets are aging and will provide only limited grease on the skids of a migration to the new Microsoft operating system, according to a new survey. Companies will have to weigh the potential costs associated with maintaining those aging machines against the cost of a migration to new hardware/software and upgrading of some existing applications.

Windows 7 is hot pick in enterprise netbook market 

Microsoft has a lock on the enterprise netbook market. According to a new study of 145 IT professionals, the operating system of choice for IT netbooks is Windows 7, followed by Windows XP. The three alternatives, Linux, Mac OS X and Google Chrome, each won the allegiance of 10% or fewer respondents. IT staffers were asked by Chadwick Martin Bailey, a custom market research and consulting firm, which netbook operating systems they had decided to standardize on in the next 24 months (respondents could standardize on more than one). Nearly a third, 29%, said they planned to standardize on Windows XP, which Microsoft repositioned in 2008 and 2009 as it saw netbook sales beginning to soar.

Apple stealing some Windows 7 thunder 

The latest reports on PC sales are relatively encouraging given the overall economy, with Gartner saying they were up 2.5% in September vs. last September and IDC finding them up 3.9%. But sales of Apple Macs are up even more.

Acer can’t wait for official Windows 7 announcement 

Acer has unveiled a new version of its Aspire One netbook running Windows 7 and plans to put it on sale simultaneously with the new operating system's debut next week. The Aspire One D250 has a 10.1-inch screen, which is the same size as current Aspire One computers but the resolution has been increased to 1,280 pixels by 720 pixels. The computer features a 1.66GHz version of Intel's Atom N280 processor and a 160GB hard-disk drive.

For more on Microsoft, visit Network World’s Microsoft subnet, an independent community. 

IDG News Service and Network World’s sister publications contributed to this report.